Welcome friend! One of the releases this month is Marcus Kliewer’s We Used to Live Here. You know I love horror and I had to give this one a try. Here is what it is about:
Marcus Kliewer | Goodreads
Get Out meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit—soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit.
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.
As soon as the strangers enter their home, uncanny and inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?
We Used to Live Here – Review
We Used to Live Here is an intriguing premise. After the strangers encountered in this book, Stranger Danger takes on its own meaning. Eve and Charlie have recently moved into this middle of nowhere house. The deal was a steal and offered them hope to make some quick money by fixing and reselling. What they didn’t expect was this family of five to show up at their door. Charlie was not home at that time and Eve, unable to exercise the power of no, let herself be convinced by the bad weather and Thomas, the father in the family, to let them come in for a harmless visit. Thomas grew up in the house and wants to show his kids around. The family is moving to another part of America and it may be a long time before they are back in the area.
We Used to Live Here reads like an eerie gothic tale. The story is mostly told from Eve’s perspective in third person. I wanted to like Eve but from the very start, she is set up to be someone who isn’t confident and constantly relies on Charlie to make simple decisions for her. It is hard to trust her judgement and root for her. As Eve interacts with Thomas and his family and later the neighbor, Heather, she starts to notice the many contradictory details like those around Thomas’s sister, the neighborhood being called Stray Dog Summit, and so on.
I love a good horror story and I find the most convincing horror is one where experiences are shared between multiple people (see HEX, Bad Cree). For a little bit in this book, when Charlie and Eve were together and their accounts corroborated on what they had seen at the house vs what was there now, I found some hope. But once Eve was by herself again, the story fell apart for me. She put herself in dangerous situations and maybe this was never in her control and things were going to work out this way once she let Thomas and his family in. Of course, it is a terrifying scenario to be erased as you know yourself and suddenly find yourself in another person’s life.
Attempts are definitely made to make this all believable. Scattered in between Eve’s story are notes by an unknown person, or people, it is hard to say, talking about a community of people who believe in haunted houses and the strange occurrences that have happened there. Houses that are bigger than they seem. Doors that appear and disappear. Transcriptions of interviews with people who don’t exist and events that never happened give a spooky feel. I was reminded of House of Leaves. Eve’s childhood toy monkey features in both these snippets and her narrative.
There is an uncanniness here because it feels like I was reading about the house and the events that were happening with Eve and what she uncovered about Thomas’s family but it’s all cryptic and I think most of We Used to Live Here is a mind game one plays with oneself.
The writing is descriptive and succeeds in creating a sense of unease. There are some jumpy scenes and maybe some people will find it hard to go into the basements and attics after reading this (where are the lights in horror books and why does the flashlight always die?!), but overall, We Used to Live Here isn’t the scariest book I have read. At the same time, early reviewers have loved this book so if you are a fan of horror and the premise sounds intriguing to you, you might enjoy it.
I learned that an abridged serialized version of this story was awarded the Scariest Story of 2021 award on the NoSleep forum and I truly wonder after reading this long version if this would have been more impactful as a short story. I will not make the time to read that but if anyone has read it, I would like to know which elements were added in here.
Many thanks to the publisher for a digital review copy of this book for an honest review. If you haven’t already, read my interview with author Marcus Kliewer here.
Add We Used to Live Here to your Goodreads if you are interested.
I’m just about over half way though the book. Did you notice its heavily inspired by House of Leaves? The surname Navidson was even used at one point. It’s kind of ruining the story a bit for me because I find myself comparing!
Yes, you are right! It did make me think of House of Leaves too.