This book is a haunted house story told from the perspective of an 8 year old girl. Each part seamlessly blends horror with childhood innocence. I devoured this book. It gave me the chills and “what was that noise” feelings the entire time. It was such a unique take on a haunted house story because most of those stories are told from the perspective of the adults in the house and the child or children are side thoughts. Malerman decided to bring the readers into the mind of a child who has a new friend. But when that friend keeps pushing her to give up something she holds dear, she knows something is wrong. Enter the parents and the secrets they hold dear.

I would definitely recommend this to any and all horror readers! Just be sure that you know what in your closet before you do.

Book: Incidents Around the House
Author: Josh Malerman
Publisher: Del Ray
ISBN: 9780593723128
Publication Date: Jun 25, 2024
Capone’s Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ of 5⭐

Summary (spoilers by implication possible but not explicitly given)

Wow. In two days of fierce reading and constantly wondering what was to happen to Malerman’s latest protagonist, I found myself feeling creeped out. This says a lot, if you consider that I read some sixty to eighty horror books per year and cannot recall the last time one of them actually frightened me. I don’t read for the frights or thrills—I read for the questions that horror literature explores. Because I was raised a philosopher, I read for the philosophical questions horror explores through its symbols and stand-ins, its exaggerations and moral outsiders.
Yet somehow, Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, a forthcoming novel that read like it was forty rather than nearly four-hundred pages long, managed both to ask complex questions about familial relationships and willful social ignorance of a family in chaos as well as to scare the hell out of me.
The plot is simple, but the premise is unique and reminiscent of the oddity found in Malerman’s earlier Pearl or Inspection, the down-home setting from Goblin and its environs brought back around for this tale of isolation. A family is haunted. The perspective is that of a child—an eight-year old. A [usually] closet-dwelling sometimes corporeal entity with a long, often upside-down face wants to be let “into [Bela’s] heart.” What letting the creature in would mean, exactly, isn’t clear. However, the sense the reader gets is that allowing the presence, AKA “Other Mommy,” into Bela’s heart would be at the least allowing a ghost to share in her soul, and in the worse case an expulsion of Bela into an unknown plane of existence for at minimum one lifetime. Pretty stinkin’ bad stuff, in other words.
Malerman sets up this premise and stakes. Then, instead of having everyone question the young protagonist’s sanity and tell the story of a girl who sees dead things no one else can see, asks, “What if everyone can see this thing? What then?” What if anyone can see it but no one cares enough to help outside of those trying to protect themselves and Bela from her haunting. I’ll spare the reader any other potential spoilers and offer the closing thought that Malerman’s entity, Other Mommy, will be something I think about for a not insignificant amount of time when next I go to bed and shut out my lights.

Thanks to Netgalley for my ARC

4.5⭐️

Incidents Around the House has made it to my #1 spot for Malerman's books. This one is definitely the most scary of any of his previous work. It took me back to my own childhood fears of what may lurk in the dark when the house is quiet. There were several scenes that made me paranoid to read this at night...or to go to the bathroom.

I also enjoyed the bigger themes he explored. I won't say too much, but I thought everything was handled in a very interesting and thoughtful way. The characters were given significant attention and it was easy to believe their individual motivations. I also appreciated the references to another Malerman book.

My only small critique is that it felt a bit repetitive in the middle.

I'd recommend this to basically any horror lover.

This book had some spine-tingling scenes, especially in the beginning but it got dull afterwards. Maybe it's the child's narrative that made it a bit repetitive and not that engaging for me. Also, the ending didn't quite hit the mark for me. Some creepy moments, but overall, not my favorite read. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Oof. This one was heavy. I appreciated the pacing because it meant the book finished quickly. The problem is the story has stayed with me - particularly the ending. It absolutely destroyed my mood. There was no cathartic release. It was just bleak and hopeless. Those who like for books to make them feel that way will enjoy this.

So this was both an interesting concept and an extremely irritating one. The narrator of the entire novel is a 8 year old Bela, meaning that all of the context you receive as a reader is given to you through the lens of a child. The sentence structure reflects this, the though processes reflect this, the repetitiveness reflects this...it was a bit exhausting to be honest. While it felt *accurate* I guess what I am trying to say is that an 8 year old is not my ideal narrator. In a severe juxtaposition to this, all of the dialogue from adults in this book felt flowery and excessive. They went on tangents about the meanings of life and all manner of complicated topics that I even struggled to follow, so attempting to explain them to an 8 year old was a silly concept. The overall haunting was intriguing and there were moments that were creepy, but the ending also fell flat and felt rushed to me.

This is one of the scariest things I’ve ever read. Truly horrifying. I honestly have no notes; it is perfection. This is Malerman’s best book so far, and that’s saying a lot. 5 stars.

Incidents Around the House, beyond being one of the most creep-inducing books in years, is motion incarnate. The formatting, voice, even paragraph spacing will keep you reading deep into the night--which now that I think about it, may have been intentional on Malerman's part--and make a 360 page book feel like a novella.
There are times when the family takes more trips than seem necessary or exposition is performed through parents talking to themselves in front of a sleeping child, but any niggling issues are just that. A minor quibble in the face of a compelling story with intriguing characters that unravel over the book's runtime, a focus on childhood innocence, and a monster that will have you double checking the shadows in the corner of your bedroom.
Malerman poses a Chekhov-esque questions on page 6 and makes you wait and wait for the answer, and you will. With delight and enough tension to recreate the intro to Ghost Ship. The strongest book yet from a modern day horror master.

(it's not the house it's not the house it's not the house it's not the)

I find Josh Malerman to be such an exciting writer, because, with every book, it seems as if he takes his creativity, locks it in a box with a bag of fireworks & a stick of dynamite, thumbs a detonator, & watches the thrashing display. Let's take all these unique ideas & just see what happens.

With INCIDENTS AROUND THE (house it's not the) HOUSE, Malerman's light show shines on a young girl, Bela; her parents, Mommy and Daddo; and Other Mommy. Other Mommy is weird. She's got all this hair on the back of her arms. Sometimes her head is on upside down. Sometimes she's as big as a room, sometimes she's as small as a whisper. & she won't stop asking Bela (can i go inside your heart?) a question. Over & over & over.

This novel - which begins as a simple enough haunted house story but then shapeshifts into something else, something harrowing, something complex - is told solely through Bela's POV. Because we're inside (your heart can i go inside) the mind of an eight year old, the world Malerman creates is limiting, it's restrictive. But that's intentional. We aren't getting the whole picture, we're getting a child's interpretation of that picture; it's all smeared & dripping & there are too way many shadows. This vagueness is the hinge on which this narrative swings. It's crucial. It makes the scares scarier. It makes the emotions more real.

The complexity is creeping, it sneaks up on you, but it's present all the way through. As are the thematic layers. They hang in the background, looming like the absurdities in dreams, those which can only be acknowledged in retrospect. This deceptive simplicity is the book's biggest strength. It makes an iceberg out of driftwood. It makes faces out of the coats in the closet's darkness.

It turns an otherwise good book into a great one, & perhaps Malerman's best so far.

(canigoinsideyourheart?)

I have been looking forward to this novel since the moment it was announced and oh boy does Malerman knock it out of park. I couldn’t put it down. This story is going to stick with me for a while… especially when I’m in the dark or near a dark closet. Amazing novel.

What a wonderful nightmare! This story found a way to take an age-old story and make it fresh and exciting. It read super quickly, and I didn’t want to put it down. The story itself is creative and fun, and importantly it felt smart and realistic. From a literal story point of view, it was refreshing to see how the characters reacted to the situation and how they explored what tools were (or were not) available to them…. Nothing felt easy, everything earned. From a metaphorical perspective, the story really asks us to wonder what if our haunted house is made up of the disruptive emotions and relationships that permeate our lives? How do our secrets, and the secrets of those we love, take up all of our psycho-emotional space? What happens when those disrupting and dysregulating experiences ask for more space than we have? Sometimes the metaphor was a little heavy-handed, but it never felt overwrought or out of place, and instead really utilized a boogeyman story to probe into something deeper.

The whole story is written from the perspective of an eight-year-old, and that strongly informs the characters and writing style. It is a tricky technique to pull off, and it is mostly successful. What works best for me, and makes the story as resonant as it is, is that it does a really good job of nailing the emotional intelligence and experience of a child. Her perspective is clearly limited, and our experience of not only her self and selfhood but also the other characters and the whole situation is therefore confined, and this all feels realistic and actually puts you in the mind-space of a young child. It makes the narration and the experiences entirely unreliable, and this all serves the story well. The language and thought process all feels age appropriate. Now, there is one place where this literary technique shows its seams. There are places where one of the parents, or maybe the grandma, will have a longer speech, either actively or in memory, and the language and complication of these feel a little unrealistic. How likely is it that both parents, independently, wait until their child falls asleep (or they think she is asleep), and then extemporize lengthy, emotional monologues about their problems… and the child remembers them word-for-word (even if she doesn’t claim to understand them)? There are a few moments like this throughout the book, but the truth is the information conveyed works for the story, it makes sense for pacing and vibe. So, for those instances I was willing to suspend my disbelief, because the benefits of the story being entirely from an eight-year old’s point of view definitely outweigh this slight literary leap. Some readers don’t always vibe with this kind of narrative technique, so it is worth realizing before diving in that the story is committed to it 100%. It worked for me, though.

I found this novel to be a genuinely frightening, unique take on a classic monster-in-my-closet story. It worked on literal and metaphorical levels, was well-paced, and really just a lot of fun. I definitely recommend it!

(Rounded up from 4.5)

I want to thank the author, the publisher Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book did it! This book gave me that eerie fear that I was CRAVING and hoping I would give from this book. Highest praise to this author for the fear they instilled in me after I finished this book. I enjoy reading in the dark hours of the night and let me just say that that definitely set the tone for me && I read it from cover to cover. I couldn’t set it down. I am going to keep this review short and simple because I refuse to give this away for anybody—everybody who enjoys the dark eerie feel should read this and I don’t want to spoil it.

This book is told by the little girl in our story. She has a ‘friend’ who lives in her closet and as much as her parents would like to pass this off as a phase and laugh about it…things start happening that cannot be ignored. The more devastation that occurs in the home the stronger this ‘friend’ becomes. This book grabbed your soul and you felt as if you were staring this monster in this book straight in the eyes. This book is hands down my top 5 for the year…EASILY. I hope to see this book become a movie—it has to…I’ll be standing in line waiting to see it because this I have to see on the big screen. Put this on your TBR if you want to feel all the nightmarish feels.

Thank you so much to the publisher, NetGalley and the author for allowing me the opportunity to read this eARC.

I want to start by saying, this book will definitely have a targeted audience. But unfortunately it was not for me. As excited as I was for the child pov…. I felt like I was lost in the story too often. I wish there was a parent or any adult pov to help clear things up. That, and just not finding this scary, or or be really a “horror”… is the only things I didn’t like about it. I would still recommend it, because I know some patrons and friends who would really enjoy this.

I was SO excited to receive a very early ARC of this new Josh Malerman. Thank you Netgalley.
The premise of this book is terrifying right from the first pages.
In this story we follow from the POV of Bela, the young daugther of Ursula and Ross. This is a seemingly happy, normal, suburban family. But you find out very quickly that Bela is not just a normal little girl. Every night for as long as Bela can remember she’s been visited by something she calls “other mommy”. Without giving anything away, you follow this family as they try to navigate/survive how to deal with “other mommy”.
I could not put this book down, I finished it in less than 24 hours. I thought being a thriller the character development was fantastic, the commentary on what it means to be a mother/parent was also so thought provoking. I really cared about these characters.
Well done again Malerman!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You can always count on Josh Malerman to deliver an unsettling, eerie story, but an entire novel told through the eyes of a young girl takes it to another level of creepy. There were quite a few parts that gave me the chills and had me questioning my decision to read it before bed! I could not put it down despite jumping at every creak and sound I heard around my house. Like most horror/thriller novels, this one would be best to dive into with very little knowledge…and be sure to turn a light on. I haven’t been afraid of closets since I was a kid, so I’d say that this was a highly effective horror novel!
I was a bit confused about the age of Bela, but other than that, this was another great Malerman book.

Incidents Around the House is a story about what secrets really haunts us and want to take over our lives. Told from the point of view of a young girl named Bela, she seems to have a happy life with her parents, and a friend who lives in her closet she calls Other Mommy. But when Other Mommy keeps asking Bela to let her into her heart, it's only the beginning of troubles for Bela's family and all they hold dear.
Just like he gave an entirely new spin on boogeymen and slashers in Daphne, Josh Malerman seems to have taken popular paranormal films and novels like Insidious, Paranormal Activity, A Head Full of Ghosts and The Exorcist, et al, and managed to reinvent the haunting/possession trope. Other Mommy is an entity very unlike any other entity of its ilk. And it's been years since I found any novel to be really scary. But the manner in which this book was told built a palpable dread right from the opening pages and feelings of genuine anxiety the longer the story went on. This was one hell of a unique take on a classic theme and a genuinely frightening story from start to finish.

This is by the author that wrote Birdbox- and because I loved that book I gave this one a chance. However, I am not a fan of the horror genre but I would consider this a mild horror story. It comes from the POV of a little girl and her parents who have issues and the haunting aspect of this book is the “other mother” that will not leave this little girl alone. The book made me want to stop reading but I couldn’t give up on it without knowing what happens next! Some will expect the ending, others won’t- as with many other books. I will leave it at that! If you like books with a creepy feel, I recommend this one!

A genuinely scary horror book

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Josh Malerman's latest release is here and it did not disappoint. Incidents Around the House follows the haunting of a family told through the eyes of their young daughter Bela. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about reading from the perspective of a child, but it really added to the story as you're only given information that's able to be understood from the eyes of a kid.

I'm generally someone who agrees that it's hard to get "scared" from a book, but Josh Malerman really is one of the only authors who can do it for me. The building tension throughout the book had my heart pumping, especially throughout the final act. I enjoyed Daphne just a bit more than this one, but Incidents Around the House is such a unique and frightening book and I can't wait for everyone to get a chance to read it - out 6/25/24!

QOTD: what's the scariest book you've ever read?

This. Book.
I'm not even sure what to say in this review. The writing is brilliant being told by an 8 year old. It's also horrifying being told by an 8 year old. I've never read anything like this. It's my first Josh Malerman book, and I've already downloaded his others. Prepare to be frightened and on the edge of your seat. This one is going to be talked about for a while.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC

When I read the first page I thought "No, it can't possibly be like this the whole time... Could it?" Long story short, yes, yes it could. But it quickly grew on me and really upped the fear factor. The story is told entirely through the perspective of the 8-year-old child named Bela. Which was eerily subtle and horrifying. I've never read a supernatural horror or any book like this before and it added so much to the story. A very unique read. Imagine if Poltergeist, Coraline, The Conjuring, and The Babadook had a little book baby and here we are. This book was uncanny in the way that it took a mundane, normal life and incorporated terrifying elements right from the get-go. I have no words for that insane final act. The end of this book will live in my brain rent-free for a long time and I already cannot wait to read it again.

Malerman had no business going this hard! I enjoyed Bird Box and Daphne, but I love love loved this one. Absolutely fantastic book and sure to be a horror standout for the year.