Name: We Used to Live Here
Series: Stand Alone
Author: Marcus Kliewer
Publisher: Transworld Digital & Simon & Schuster Audio
Format: Immserive with Kindle and Audiobook
Genres: Adult, Psychological Horror, Thriller, Suspense
🌶️: None
😭: None
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
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 family enters their home, strange and inexplicable things start happening, including their toddler 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?
Review:
For some reason We Used to Live Here was a book I really wanted to listen to as an audio read… So, I used my credit on it and did an immersive read while having a quiet work day. Thank gosh it was a quiet work day because this book captured my interest immediately! The story begins with Eve’s door being knocked on by a family who used to live at the house she’s just purchased with her girlfriend, their intention to flip the property. And let me say, this story has me utterly convinced that not answering the door unless you’re expecting someone is the right choice!
This was a psychological horrror / thriller and given that Marcus hooked me in instantly, it’s safe to say he absolutely got in my head. There is a mix of present day chapters and then what I suppose I’d call ‘research’ chapters, these chapters covers varying different media and topics all surrounding the situation that Eve finds herself in, loosely…
I’ll admit that I find it hard to write a review for We Used to Live Here, and not because I didn’t love it, I absolutely did. But because I did find that even at the end of this story, I’m still pretty confused. I can’t figure out if the ending is left openly ambiguous so that it plays in your head (like it appears to be for me) or if it’s pretty clear about its ending and I’ve not put together all the pieces in order to know this. Shockingly, I’m not angry about this confusion – I really found that I was deep in this story, deep enough that I wasn’t putting together all the pieces (like the morse code and the glyphs!). If the author can do that, then it certainly isn’t a bad book!
I did some reading after I finished this to try and solve some of the puzzles I didn’t solve and found some answers that had me pretty excited to read his newest book! But also, if you used to read (I can’t comment on what it is like now) forums like NoSleep, then you may get similar vibes from We Used to Live Here! Which personally I loved. If Goodreads is to be believed, this story began on NoSleep!
So, I’d love to rate this 5 stars because it feels like a 5 star read. But I can’t help but be confused and therefore I dropped the rating to 4.5 stars (4 initially, but I quickly realised that my only issue was being conflicted about being confused over the ending). I definitely plan on reading The Caretaker by this author, especially given what I found out about a certain clue within the pages…
You let them back in… You shouldn’t have
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