A Man. A Girl. And A Cat.

I recently finished reading The Last House of Needless Street by Catriona Ward. This is my book club's October pick.

*POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT* Rating: 2.5/5 stars

"In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three.

A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time.

A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.

And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible.

An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all."

Every year there is that one book that nearly all of my fabulous GR friends love, and I shake my head in bewilderment and think that I must have read a different book than everyone else. I went into this one expecting a dark, gothic, horror read, but instead, it was just a bizarre, psychological mystery with a cat narrator.

This is definitely one of those books that will be very polarizing among readers. They will either love it or hate it. Unfortunately, I did not love it.

The setup was fairly intriguing. From the start of the novel, it is made clear that the author is purposely holding back information from the reader. However, any seasoned thriller reader will know very early on what is happening. Honestly, I don't know if the author was actually trying to hide much from the reader. Instead, this is one of those stories where the reader probably knows what is happening and just enjoys watching the reveals unfold.

My biggest issue was actually the tone of the story, which felt almost comical. Other readers described this one as creepy and suspenseful, which made me wonder if they had read a different book with the same title.

Despite my own reading experience, I always encourage people to try books for themselves since this story obviously has clicked with other readers. I really wish it had worked better for me because it had a lot of potential, I'm disappointed!

I really wanted to like this but just nothing seemed to come together for me. This just felt so clunky; the story seemed to go nowhere for ages to try and set something up that just felt completely unwarranted to me. This felt just really cheesy and almost comical at times. The tone of this book is all over the place.

From the second chapter when Olivia, the cat, is talking and quoting the Bible, I had an inkling where the plot was headed, as it is the most overused thriller trope out there, but I was hoping I was wrong. I wasn't. The only thing that kept this from being a one-star read for me was Dee's storyline. I did find it intriguing, and I was surprised by the elements of it. If the whole book had been more Dee and her sister's disappearance and less Ted, I may have enjoyed it more. The ending of the book does tie things up succinctly and it makes a bit more sense, but by that time, I couldn't care less about any of it.

Needless to say, this could be "The Last Book on Any Street," and I still would not give it more than a lackluster 2.5 stars. The blurb promises "you won't guess the ending" but honestly... it's pretty obvious. Also not a big fan of using mental illness as some big gimmicky twist.

Check out The Last House on Needless Street, and decided for yourself if it is worth the hype or not.

Happy Reading :)