The House in the Pines: A Novel

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Maya does her Miss Marple thing to try to find out what really happened to Aubrey, to find out how Frank killed her, and one more thing. During the few weeks in which she dated Frank, there were multiple episodes in which she lost hours of time. Did Frank drug her? There is peril aplenty, as we take Maya’s word that Frank is a killer, so all her activity might be putting her in mortal peril. If only the cops had taken her seriously, but you know the cops in such almost stories never do. The book’s narrative structure is also erratic at times. The House in the Pines jumped from present to past to present without any markers to orient the reader. I could have really used a heading for each chapter with the date.

Maya has no idea the can of worms she opens will bring about more questions than answers and she must face that there were many things she can't remember about her relationship with Frank when she was a teenager and if she does confront him again it could be her life at stake this time and there won't be anyone there to save her. Maya comes across a YouTube video showing a young woman, sitting in a diner booth, suddenly keel over and die. Sitting directly across from this woman is none other than Frank, the same man who happened to be sitting right next to Aubrey at the time of her death. Overall, this was fine as a debut. I can't say I was overly invested with the story or with how unreliable Maya was, but I'm not mad I read it. I wouldn't put this in the thriller category either, a psychological something, not sure what. When she meets Frank at the local library, inexperienced Maya is taken in by the older boy right away. It's not necessarily his looks, but more a certain magnetism he has that is hard to resist. Of course, if you are one of many readers who is OVER the pill-popping 'can we trust her' trope...you might want to avoid this. It only tends to annoy me on a case-by-case basis (and didn't here, although her habit was mentioned more than it needed to be) and I don't feel it detracted from the narrative too much, but if you are fed up with addicted protagonists, this won't be the book for you.These questions have been tailored to this book’s specific reading experience, but if you want more ideas, we also have an article with 101 generic book club questions. How did Maya’s addiction impact her credibility, if at all? As the novel went on, did Maya’s credibility change for you? If so, what was the turning point? I was able to listen to a final version as well. Although the narrator was fine there was not a heads up when we were in the past, I like a heads up. To me, The House In the Pines reads more like a coming of age/trauma and abuse recovery story with a side mystery. I was waiting for some cool (or at least logical) resolution to The House in the Pines that did not happen.

Additionally, her mother, who has years of experience as an EMT, may be just the person to help Maya through the painful withdrawal process. Seven years later Maya is living contentedly with her boyfriend although she has never gotten over Aubrey's sudden death. One day Maya comes across a UTube video of a girl dying in a diner and guess who is sitting across from her when it happens? Yes, it was Frank in the video. Now how's that for a coincidence. Maya makes it her mission to find out what happened to this girl because she knows now he did kill Aubrey but how can she prove it. If it were guaranteed to work, would you ever consider undergoing hypnotherapy to correct a habit or forget about a painful experience? Why or why not?It's like she was forced to relive it. I appreciated that her character was willing to return home and face all her fears and it did get creepy. You will find how Frank did murder people (if he did) but the answer is head-scratching and, as I argue above never seemed to me like the main driver of the book’s plot and theme. Many thanks to NetGalley, Dutton, and Ana Reyes for an ARC of this book! Now available as of 1.3!**

This story follows Maya. When Maya was a Senior in high school, her best friend Aubrey, died suddenly, mysteriously and with no identifiable cause, directly in front of Maya's eyes. The only other person around, a young man named Frank, fled the scene. Cliches don’t mean a bad book! But The House in the Pines features some major thriller cliches of the 2010s and 2020s, from the substance abusing unreliable narrator reminiscent of books like The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window and The House Across the Lake to the character returning to her hometown after the traumatic murder of her best friend (see All Good People Here, The It Girl, The Shards , Stay Awake, Nice Girls and, well, let’s be honest and say that all of it might have started in 2004 with Veronica Mars and her desire to get to the bottom of the death of her BFF Lilly Kane. RIP, Lilly). The main character just had all the issues.. everything. And we are meant to believe anything she said or did? And she wasn’t a nice person either. Nothing about her was likeable, she was a bit of a brat and I stopped caring about what was going to happen.Isn’t it interesting two healthy young women dropped death after talking with the same guy? Is he death whisperer? Is he an evil magician? I was really intrigued by this story. It pulled me in from the start. I enjoyed how Reyes structured the telling of the story. There are both past-and-present timelines, as you slowly piece together what happened between Maya, Frank and Aubrey that summer and how that has impacted Maya's life ever since. Maya is rattled. It seems like proof to her. She always knew Frank did something to Aubrey and now this other girl, this sort of proves it, doesn't it? Ana Reyes said of The House in the Pines, “The idea of home, though always important to the story, emerged as a theme in ways I hadn’t expected.”

Overall, this psychological thriller felt menacing and chilling at times. It also had suspense, interesting characters, and a thought-provoking story line. If you enjoy psychological thrillers with an unreliable narrator, then this may be the book for you. If you could please stop being so cute and coming off as such a nice, friendly person to make it easier for me to avoid your terrible book club selections I would really appreciate it. If you can’t do that, then when it comes to the options you select for us to read, I’m telling you . . . . .Thanks to the author, Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley for the ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review* on a positive note, i did eventually find myself somewhat invested in the story, but mostly because i hoped to be proved wrong with my suspicions. it was atmospheric and i enjoyed the scenes at the cabin (wish we would have gotten more of that). i also appreciate that the author went a little out of the box with the plot Ana Reyes’s debut is chilling, atmospheric, and addictive—a perfect thriller. I didn’t want it to end.” I want to thank the publisher "Penguin Group Dutton" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this novel and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!