Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!'s Reviews > We Used to Live Here
We Used to Live Here
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Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!'s review
bookshelves: widget-received, edelweiss
Jun 30, 2024
bookshelves: widget-received, edelweiss
**Many thanks to Edelweiss, Atria, and Marcus Kliewer for a DRC of this book in exchange for an honest review! Now available as of 6.18!**
There is something truly fascinating about the art of stop motion animation when you view the finished product.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that at first look, everything that appears so fluid (and in movies such as the Nightmare Before Christmas, so creepy!) was once a bunch of still puppets sitting on a miniature set...who were moved one painstaking moment at a time, and that one frame of film can take hours and even DAYS of filming to get just right.
But in the case of stop motion animator turned author Marcus Kliewer, the finished product that is We Used to Live Here not only was missing this sort of eerie fluidity...but lacked the sort of cohesion to make it make any ACTUAL sense.
The premise starts off simply enough: Charlie and Eve are two house flippers who also happen to be a loving couple...and their latest find seems too good to be true. The giant house has all sorts of promise, and they can't believe their good fortune at being the lucky two who are able to snatch it up. One day, Eve is home alone when she hears a knock at the door...and it is none other than a family of former occupants, led by Thomas, who want to take a quick jaunt down memory lane and poke around his old stomping grounds. Although Eve finds this slightly off-putting, she figures they seem harmless, and even though the snow is falling, they won't stay too long...right?
Everything takes a quick and dramatic turn, however, when Thomas' daughter manages to go missing in this short amount of time...and refuses to come out. Eve begins to panic, but Thomas assures her this behavior is normal and that she will soon emerge. However, as time goes on, Eve starts to notice frightening, unexplained noises she has never experienced before...and the winter storm raging outside means that the family is seemingly here to stay. But have they brought something other than their memories with them...something unseen, mysterious...and evil? And why does everybody have such a hard time believing Eve when she reaches out for help? Why hasn't Charlie returned...or could there be a doppelganger hanging around? Can Eve figure out what the house wants from her...before she gets 'lost' for good?
I was 100% on board to jump at the chance to read an early copy of this one after a few rave reviews AND after reading the rights to this book have already been snapped up by Netflix and a movie staring Blake Lively is in the works. A good creepy house tale is the sort of horror I can usually jump into quickly, with a few recent examples (like Sager's The Only One Left and the Due's eerie The Reformatory) coming instantly to mind. A well-written house with a vendetta normally screams Halloween BUT at the same time, seemed like a welcome break from the standard fare of summer thriller season, so I was chomping at the bit to dive into this tale.
But to be honest...I think I sort of tripped on the doormat and never quite recovered.
Finding out this story STARTED as a series on Reddit makes a whole lot of sense: it has a certain disjointed, piecemeal feeling that may read foreboding to some, but just left me unsettled and sort of confused for the entire read. There are random bits of news clippings, interviews, home listings, and the like sprinkled throughout the book which is normally a device I LOVE because I honestly find nothing more enticing in a horror story than some solid backstory, but let's just say you can't go into this book expecting ANYTHING to be fully explained...at all.
Some readers will LOVE this (and have, evidenced by so many early 5 star reviews!) and there are certain aspects I enjoyed too: the atmosphere was foreboding, there was a mystery afoot almost immediately (although you're going to have to parse out exactly what that mystery IS in your mind!) and there is plenty of fodder for creepiness, speculation, and a slow build to a crescendo of craziness. I'm not so much a fan of a slow burn, however, so I kept wanting to SEE this book rather than reading it: the novel almost reads more like a screenplay at times, or like one that was first imagined in a visual sense and THEN translated to the page.
I can't tell you how many times I've watched a movie with a twisty ending and then thought...NOW I need a second watch to catch all of the details I missed the first time, and this is absolutely THAT in bookish form. This is no disrespect to Kliewer as a writer: in fact, it's sort of a compliment in that he could add so much extraneous detail that seems important but isn't easy to piece together from the off. At the same time, though, as much as I had a thousand questions upon finishing...I really had no desire to tromp through it again. The sort of unhinged nature of the last 20% was enough to make up for earlier inconsistencies...or at the least, enough to convince me I NEED to watch the Netflix adaptation to see if this was simply a case of right story, wrong medium.
But if it turns out that Blake Lively can't save it?💃
... I'm not sure anyone can.
3 stars
There is something truly fascinating about the art of stop motion animation when you view the finished product.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that at first look, everything that appears so fluid (and in movies such as the Nightmare Before Christmas, so creepy!) was once a bunch of still puppets sitting on a miniature set...who were moved one painstaking moment at a time, and that one frame of film can take hours and even DAYS of filming to get just right.
But in the case of stop motion animator turned author Marcus Kliewer, the finished product that is We Used to Live Here not only was missing this sort of eerie fluidity...but lacked the sort of cohesion to make it make any ACTUAL sense.
The premise starts off simply enough: Charlie and Eve are two house flippers who also happen to be a loving couple...and their latest find seems too good to be true. The giant house has all sorts of promise, and they can't believe their good fortune at being the lucky two who are able to snatch it up. One day, Eve is home alone when she hears a knock at the door...and it is none other than a family of former occupants, led by Thomas, who want to take a quick jaunt down memory lane and poke around his old stomping grounds. Although Eve finds this slightly off-putting, she figures they seem harmless, and even though the snow is falling, they won't stay too long...right?
Everything takes a quick and dramatic turn, however, when Thomas' daughter manages to go missing in this short amount of time...and refuses to come out. Eve begins to panic, but Thomas assures her this behavior is normal and that she will soon emerge. However, as time goes on, Eve starts to notice frightening, unexplained noises she has never experienced before...and the winter storm raging outside means that the family is seemingly here to stay. But have they brought something other than their memories with them...something unseen, mysterious...and evil? And why does everybody have such a hard time believing Eve when she reaches out for help? Why hasn't Charlie returned...or could there be a doppelganger hanging around? Can Eve figure out what the house wants from her...before she gets 'lost' for good?
I was 100% on board to jump at the chance to read an early copy of this one after a few rave reviews AND after reading the rights to this book have already been snapped up by Netflix and a movie staring Blake Lively is in the works. A good creepy house tale is the sort of horror I can usually jump into quickly, with a few recent examples (like Sager's The Only One Left and the Due's eerie The Reformatory) coming instantly to mind. A well-written house with a vendetta normally screams Halloween BUT at the same time, seemed like a welcome break from the standard fare of summer thriller season, so I was chomping at the bit to dive into this tale.
But to be honest...I think I sort of tripped on the doormat and never quite recovered.
Finding out this story STARTED as a series on Reddit makes a whole lot of sense: it has a certain disjointed, piecemeal feeling that may read foreboding to some, but just left me unsettled and sort of confused for the entire read. There are random bits of news clippings, interviews, home listings, and the like sprinkled throughout the book which is normally a device I LOVE because I honestly find nothing more enticing in a horror story than some solid backstory, but let's just say you can't go into this book expecting ANYTHING to be fully explained...at all.
Some readers will LOVE this (and have, evidenced by so many early 5 star reviews!) and there are certain aspects I enjoyed too: the atmosphere was foreboding, there was a mystery afoot almost immediately (although you're going to have to parse out exactly what that mystery IS in your mind!) and there is plenty of fodder for creepiness, speculation, and a slow build to a crescendo of craziness. I'm not so much a fan of a slow burn, however, so I kept wanting to SEE this book rather than reading it: the novel almost reads more like a screenplay at times, or like one that was first imagined in a visual sense and THEN translated to the page.
I can't tell you how many times I've watched a movie with a twisty ending and then thought...NOW I need a second watch to catch all of the details I missed the first time, and this is absolutely THAT in bookish form. This is no disrespect to Kliewer as a writer: in fact, it's sort of a compliment in that he could add so much extraneous detail that seems important but isn't easy to piece together from the off. At the same time, though, as much as I had a thousand questions upon finishing...I really had no desire to tromp through it again. The sort of unhinged nature of the last 20% was enough to make up for earlier inconsistencies...or at the least, enough to convince me I NEED to watch the Netflix adaptation to see if this was simply a case of right story, wrong medium.
But if it turns out that Blake Lively can't save it?💃
... I'm not sure anyone can.
3 stars
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Reading Progress
March 1, 2024
– Shelved
March 1, 2024
– Shelved as:
to-read
March 1, 2024
– Shelved as:
widget-received
April 7, 2024
– Shelved as:
edelweiss
June 20, 2024
–
Started Reading
June 23, 2024
–
Finished Reading
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Jun 30, 2024 09:07AM
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YES I think they absolutely should have stuck to 'story on Reddit, the rest on Netflix' for this one! I don't knock the author for trying, but after reading so many reviews where others felt frustrated by the ambiguity, it was hard to let that go and really buy in. It also bugged me that it took SO long to get interesting and just sort of felt all over the place...I like backstory but it needs to make sense!! Thanks so much for your kind words, Rachel! 💖
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Thank you kindly, Margaret!! 💕
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Hmm I'm really curious to see if the audio would help with the clarity! You know I almost never try those 😂 but if you say it's good I might check it out from the library just to see if listening to the material a second time would help a bit...thank you Jayme! 💙
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
It's a bit wacky, that's for sure! 😆 I do think a re-read would help but like I said I don't know if I can handle it...VERY excited for the Netflix version though, I think it will work SO well on the screen! TYSM Barbara!! 💖
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Intriguing for sure, although it got a lot better as it went along in that respect even if it didn't always make sense LOL! Thank you, Jen! :)
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Thank you kindly, Sujoya!! 💗
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Aw thank you, Sri! :) It was an interesting premise and had TONS of potential, but I do think there were too many unanswered questions and it will play better on the screen...fingers crossed! 🤞
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
The excitement I got towards the end couldn't make up for the scattered way I felt while reading so it just sort of tanked the whole experience unfortunately :/ but I have high hopes for the adaptation!! Thank you so much, Rosh! 💗
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
I think in some ways it was supposed to be that way maybe (?) although I haven't investigated the Reddit thread where it started etc. so I'm not sure...but I just wanted it to be more cohesive all the way around than it was! I hope the movie is better too, and thank you much, A!! 😊
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AGH thank god you felt the same, Melissa. I was seriously thinking it was just me!! I also appreciate your review so much and thanks for the heads up about House of Leaves, will most definitely pass on that one!
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Ooh I’ll be curious to see how that differs from the print/digital…I’ll keep my eyes peeled for your thoughts, Marilyn! 💗
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Ooh I’ll be curious to see how that differs from the print/digital…I’ll keep my eyes peeled ..."
Well I was totally confused, befuddled, and flummoxed as you were, Catherine. I know I would have been the same if I'd read the book as opposed to listening to it. 😵💫
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
Ooh I’ll be curious to see how that differs from the print/digital…I’ll ke..."
It was alllllllll over the place, that’s for sure! I kept feeling like maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, but I think it wasn’t us….just the book! 🤪 LOL! Glad we are in the same boat Marilyn! 🥰
![Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1565295366p1/29919991.jpg)
I am excited about that too, very curious to see what they will do with all of the unanswered questions...👀 thanks so much, Jayme!! 😘