This was one of my more anticipated reads of 2025. A locked room mystery that is inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie? Sign me up!

Ultimately, "The Other People" fell flat for me. I had difficulty connecting with the characters and the writing style was not for me. I think this is an interesting premise, however, the book really took until the last 10% to pull me in. I have seen multiple other reviewers reference a popular movie that seemed to have heavily inspired this book (not going to say what the movie is because that is definitely a spoiler) and I have to agree. I think the movie did it better....

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

If you combine Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None with Shutter Island and a dash of ‘The Upside Down World’ then you have an apt description of The Other People. C.B Everett creates a highly entertaining and dark modern retelling of Christie’s celebrated novel. Although at times it comes across as wordy and the characters are highly reprehensible, the ending makes it all worth it.

Read this if you like:
-multiple POVs
-unreliable narrators and unlikeable characters
-high concept take of And Then There Were None
-locked room mysteries
-a gothic mansion setting complete with never ending rooms, secret passages and almost tv studio/stage set/funhouse house of horrors vibe
-twists and turns and a strong stomach for the nature of some deaths
-a sprinkle of dark humour with the narrator The Beast
-highly satisfying WOW ending

My rating 4.25 out of 5

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this eARC that will be published March 25 2025.

As much as I wanted to love this book I just didn't. I love a multiple POV but this one had characters I just could not like. It was overall wordy and somethings weren't important to the plot or events. It was a struggle to complete it.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this arc.

"I escaped from that house, came straight here, and...and all the others...all the others are dead."

Ten strangers wake up inside an old house. They have no recollection of how they got there, but are told they have twelve hours to find a missing girl in order to flee the house. Not only is it a race against the clock, but there's also a killer on the loose that seems to want them all dead.

THE OTHER PEOPLE by C.B. Everett is definitely a story that should be gone into as blind as possible (the above synopsis is all you need!).

This book rotated POVs, which is always a fave of mine, and really leaned into the murder mystery of it all (heavy heavy on the murder, which I didn't have an issue with).

However, I found this book to be very heavy-handed with the stereotypes, making it hard for me to enjoy most of the characters as they were portrayed in often uncomfortable ways. Also, there was one POV character "The Beast" that basically holds the reader's hand throughout the story and explains everything that's happening - as a reader, I don't enjoy it when the author seems to imply I'm incapable of reading comprehension 😬

The fourth wall breaking in those chapters was fun, though! And the twist really turned it around for me in terms of "wow" factor in the story.

Overall, this book just didn't fully work out for me even if the binge factor was definitely there!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the copy for review!

I loved this. Just the right amount of suspense, mystery and horror right from the start. The multiple POVs really make the psychological chaos SO intense. Everyone is absolutely insufferable though.

The only reason this wasn't a 5 ☆ for me is because I read too many reviews and descriptions that kind of made the twist at the end predictable.

Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a trip that I should have loved but the execution fell flat. It’s a story that’s been played out before a few times and in one of my favorite movies of all time. I’ve been craving books like this.

However, the problem for me lies in the execution. The characters were extremely unlikable, the build up so slow and some of the details seemed irrelevant to the overall story. I knew way too early on where we’re heading but was so curious how we would get there and how the story would be pieced together. The real action didn’t come until almost 90% of the way and it wrapped so abruptly that all it lacked some of the punch it could have provided.

Overall, not bad just disappointing as I’ve loved two very similar movies and a book that just did it better.

This was quite an interesting locked room mystery. I think that the Beast chapters sprinkled throughout were my favorite part of the book. They were fun to read and helped break up some of the heavier topics.

I appreciated how the book was told from the points of view of each of the guests, but it took me a bit to be able to keep them all straight as there were so many.

Read this if you like:
♦️ Locked Room
♦️ Lots of POVs
♦️ Whodunit
♦️ Unreliable narrator

If you are looking for a unique murder mystery type book, try this one when it comes out next year.

I absolutely loved this story UNTIL the end. I usually don't include spoilers in my reviews, but this "trend" that I've seen is something I absolutely despise.

The story itself is great - modern retelling of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", but a little meta because the characters acknowledge the similarities between their situation and this story. The characters are pretty well-rounded and the writing grabs you. There is an unreliable narrator of sorts, the Beast in the Cellar, who is hilarious.

Again, I loved this story...until the big reveal was that this entire thing is because of dissociative personality disorder, DID. Something that angers me to my bones is when mental illness is used as an excuse or a reasoning for fucked up behavior like this. Not only do I think it's low hanging fruit writing wise, it's also horribly demeaning and perpetuates fear and bad reputations. Not everyone with DID is murderous. Not everyone with DID is a serial killer. True, people with DID are more easily hypnotized. The Beast in the Cellar had some remarkably intelligent commentary and I truly loved the reveals and the twists, but after how great the story was I'm disappointed the author took an easy way out - "it's all fake", "it was the same person all along", etc.

If you want to go on a rollercoaster murder-mystery, and don't care about degrading stigmas about mental illnesses, go off and read this till your heart is content. But I'm upset that such an amazing build-up led to such a letdown.

If you are in the mood for a dark, quirky mystery, The Other People, will be the perfect book to curl up by the fire and enjoy with a hot cup of tea. But be sure to lock the doors.

Ten people, with very different personalities, wake up locked in a house that they cannot escape. The only way to escape, is to solve the mystery of a serial killer who is burying beautiful young girls alive.. One by one, each of the very troubled and annoying houseguests are murdered.

This book was reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s famous mystery, And Then There Were None, but much darker and with a twist. It was an entertaining mystery with characters that were incredibly flawed and just awful people. There were so many details that I had questions over, but that just added to the mystery to make this a great book to discuss with bookish friends.

The way the novel was written, each chapter was told in first person by one of the ten trapped houseguests. There was also a character that served as a sort of narrator or emcee, who was hiding in the cellar of the house. This witty character actually helped to bring to light some clues the reader might have missed.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley #TheOtherPeople

This is a very clever, highly entertaining locked-room mystery. I kept flipping through the pages trying to understand what the characters might have in common and what was causing each of them to be killed, one by one, but I had no idea. I couldn’t put the pieces together. The chapters titled “The Beast in the Cellar” were addressed directly to the reader and kept me further in the dark. I did not see the twist coming towards the end and was quite surprised to find out what was happening.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"A group of strangers gathered at a mysterious country house are in a race against time to stop a serial killer in this twisty, high-concept thriller that combines Agatha Christie with Shutter Island.

Ten strangers.

An old dark house.

A killer picking them off one by one.

And a missing girl who's running out of time...

And then there was one.

Ten strangers wake up inside an old, locked house. They have no recollection of how they got there. In order to escape, they have to solve the disappearance of a young woman. But a killer also stalks the halls of the house and soon the body count starts to rise. Who are these strangers? Why were they chosen? Why would someone want to kill them? And who - or what - lurks in the cellar?

Forget what you think you know.

Because while you can trust yourself, can you really trust The Other People?"

Give that cover art I'd say really horrific giant eyes lurk in the cellar.

I love a good locked-room mystery, but The Other People left me feeling conflicted. The plot was nothing new—your typical setup with strangers trapped in a house—but it kept me reading, mostly out of sheer curiosity (and confusion). I spent most of the book wondering what was going on and why the characters were making such terrible decisions. The final twist, though? That had *shock appeal.* I didn’t see it coming. The gasp I gused. 😆

That said, a lot of the story felt unbelievable, requiring a serious suspension of disbelief. The characters? Hated all of them. But despite my frustration, I was engaged the whole time. If you like mysteries that leave you guessing (and slightly bewildered), this one might be worth a read.



Thank you @atriabooks for the gifted copy!

Imagine waking up in a locked house with nine strangers, no idea how you got there, and a missing woman at the center of it all.
A classic whodunit suspense with suspense, lies, and a killer in the midst.
What tripped me up was all the hard to follow characters and some moments dragged, making it easy to lose momentum.
But I still had fun with this one and the locked room claustrophobic atmosphere.

”Hello, you little beast.”

This was absolutely wild.

”If you want to know about monsters and what they’re capable of, then ask me.”

Ten strangers are gathered in a creepy old house for a dinner party, where they’re tasked with finding a missing girl who is believed to be the next victim of a local serial killer. But before they can make much progress, someone in the house (or the house itself) starts picking them off one by one.

”Don’t ask me how, or why. Don’t ask me anything about this house.”

I honestly don’t even know how to describe this. I’ve never read anything like it. I can see this book being incredibly polarizing—it gets incredibly confusing and hard to follow in places, but that’s deliberate and it’s building toward a big payoff at the end that will either really work for you or really won’t.

”What do I mean by that? Why did I think that phrase? I don’t know, and a sliver of panic inserts itself between my ribs. My mind is thinking things that I don’t understand…”

I had not previously seen any of the movies that this book is compared to, so I didn’t anticipate the plot twist ahead of time. I did start to suspect something in that vicinity, because the book’s plot became so manically unhinged that it wouldn’t have made sense any other way.

”The house is alive. The house doesn’t want to let us go. Has no intention of letting us go.”

If you can stomach gory, twisted, and downright disturbing, give this one a shot. It’s absolutely unique and thought-provoking, but also deeply unsettling and not for the faint of heart.

——

A huge thank you to C.B. Everett, Atria, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A group finds themselves all confined in a house, unaware of what was going on before this moment. They learn they are all being tasked to find a missing girl, and that they are all connected in some way. They have 12 hours to produce an answer, otherwise this may be the last thing they do.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately at 17%, I have decided to DNF this one. At the point I got to, I was not able to connect with this story. Because of this, please know my rating may not accurately reflect the book. I hope it finds the right audience! Thank you again.

2.75 stars

This book took the classic And Then There Were None and spun it on its head with lots of twists towards the end.

My biggest problem? I hated the characters. Now I certainly think that you can create a story where there are unlikeable narrators/characters. And Then There Were None is a perfect example! It certainly makes it less upsetting in a book where they get picked off one by one.

With this book, the story dragged on for far too long. By the middle of the book, I found myself not caring about any of the characters or their backstories. I was just waiting for something to happen.

The treatment of Ramona was also deeply unsettling to me. She was one of the only characters that I somewhat liked, so it was quite difficult to read how some of the characters treated her.

I will say that I liked “The Beast of the Cellar’s” character initially. Their pov provided some interest and comedy as well. However, that pov soon proved boring too. There was way too much filler and not enough twists.

The biggest thing that saved this book from a lower rating was the ending. That was not a twist that I saw coming at all. I was shocked at how it all unraveled. If there was more of that throughout the book, I could see myself enjoying it a lot more.

I want to thank you Atria books and Netgalley for an early copy of this book.

Even though it was not my favorite, I could see a lot of people enjoying this book. If you are a fan of unreliable narrators, “picked off one by one,” and twisty thrillers this book might be for you!

Sadly, despite this promising my favorite trope of all time, this book did not work for me on any level. Poorly written, derivative, and distasteful

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the free digital ARC.
I first heard about "The Other People" by C.B. Everett last summer at the Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival and was given a free sample of the book. I have been anticipating it ever since and really enjoyed reading it!
"The Other People" by C.B. Everett is a thriller that is both chilling and suspenseful. It follows 10 strangers who wake up in a secluded mansion and have no memory of how they arrived or why they're there and they now have to solve the mystery of a missing woman within twelve hours in order to leave. this was a really interesting storyline and I really enjoyed it!!

I read the reviews for this before I read it, and I honestly wish I hadn’t. In fact, I urge everyone to go into this book with an open mind. It’s a great book, but I think a lot of people were just too willing to DNF based on the reviews of other people, creating a snowball effect. Either that, or it was review bombed. I seriously don’t think it deserves the hate it’s getting! You really have to go into reading this knowing that every single thing has a purpose, even though it doesn’t seem like it at first.

With that being said, I’ll get into my review, but this one is going to be hard to do without some spoilers. First, it is a multi POV book, which is CRUCIAL to the storyline. If you hate multi POV, this is not the book for you. Personally, I liked the format, and I don’t think it would have worked with just a single POV. I knew within the first two chapters exactly what was going on, so maybe that was why the things other people complained about didn’t bother me. In fact, I enjoyed watching it all play out.

The only thing I wasn’t stoked on was the Beast in the Cellar’s POV. I liked the humor don’t get me wrong. But I did feel like those chapters pulled me out of the story. Personally, I probably would have rated it higher if not for those chapters. I understand the point of them, but I think the pacing would have improved without them. Those chapters do break the fourth wall though, so do with that what you will. Some people are ok with that, some aren’t. As far as the characters, you won’t like most of them. And yes, there is a reason for that! The last, and biggest, spoiler is the issue of comps. On that, I’ll agree with other reviewers. It’s not Shutter Island meets Agatha Christie. It’s more like Split as a locked room murder mystery. I’m guessing they couldn’t use that for a comp because it gives it all away.

I love a good locked room mystery, and I really enjoyed this one. I absolutely disagree with people that it was too gory. It wasn’t. It’s a murder mystery. I thought some of the murders were tamer than I expected. But that’s just me! Overall, I think this book had far more good qualities than bad. Is it perfect? No. But it sure as hell is entertaining.

Huge thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

C.B. Everett’s "The Other People" delivers an intriguing premise that sets the stage for a tense and mysterious read.

The story’s concept—ten strangers trapped in a locked house with no memory of how they arrived—is compelling and establishes an atmosphere of suspense. The ticking clock and the looming danger of a hidden killer create some engaging moments, though the execution doesn’t always maintain the same level of intensity throughout. The characters offer varying levels of depth, with some standing out as compelling while others feel underdeveloped. The diverse viewpoints add complexity to the narrative, but not all of them feel fully realized.

The pacing is steady, but at times the momentum dips, with certain twists feeling more predictable than surprising. While the confined setting effectively heightens the sense of claustrophobia, the narrative occasionally leans too heavily on this aspect, which can make the story feel repetitive. Nevertheless, there are moments of genuine intrigue that will keep readers invested in uncovering the mystery.

Overall, "The Other People" has a creative concept and some notable strengths, but it doesn’t quite reach its full potential. It’s an enjoyable read for those who appreciate a contained mystery, even if it might leave others wanting more.