Another great outing from Jo nesbo, a nice change in pace from the police thrillers that is very well written

As everyone else seems to have said in their reviews, this is a book of 3 parts, I really enjoyed each part on their own, maybe not part 2 quite as much but the rest yes, and as part 1 takes up most of the book it was a good job that was enjoyable. I personally don't think it's anything profound or mould-bteakimg but I had fun and I do hope Jo Nesbo continues to write horror because I think the world knows how well they write dark thrillers but I'm anticipating better and better horrors coming from Jo

Requested for my wife who told me she enjoyed this so much, I had to give it a try. I did finish but it's not my genre and one of these days, I may sleep again.
Am catching up on all the reviews I haven't left over the year, so sorry this is late, but my thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the reading copy.

The experience of reading this book is like walking into a scary house of mirrors, complete with sound effects and no idea of which way is up. I enjoyed it a lot!

I don’t read horror often (usually just in October) so I choose very carefully. This book is written in three parts, which cleverly develops the story and also provides a fresh perspective. This aspect is well executed, but I was left with some questions. I feel that with some more exploration of the effect of childhood trauma it could be brilliant. Nevertheless the plot is captivating and the tension makes The Night House compelling reading.

I enjoyed the macabre in this story because it worked brilliantly alongside the psychological tension. The writing is very immersive and comes with its own soundscape of buzzing insects, ringing telephones and whispering voices. The story begins with school children and themes of bullying which I found was written realistically, with well developed characters. Throughout the book I found myself feeling differently about protagonist Richard as I learned more about him.

I think this is a good choice for fans of the TV series Stranger Things, and horror readers who enjoy unreliable narration, or a story within a story.

The Night House is a coming-of-age horror that goes on a journey I didn't expect! It is divided into three parts and unfortunately, they don’t all work for me. Part 1 starts with a bang when Tom disappears into a telephone while Richard watches in horror. Richard is kind of a jerk, and this section is more like a YA horror where adults don’t believe children. Yet the story moves fast and the adventure gets wild, so that I was totally invested in the children's situation. The characters felt real, and their fears were palpable. Part 2 arrives with a question mark as some time has passed, but things quickly get nightmarish. I loved how memories are interpreted and the way the narrative gets blurry. I was left unsure about what is real and what is not.

But Part 3 is where everything fell apart for me. The book takes a path down a well-worn trope that I detest and it is not handled any better here. The ending feels like a cop-out after the previous sections had established an intriguing mystery. This section explores how memories can be affected in the aftermath of trauma, but I think it could have been executed better. I was disappointed by the ending especially because I enjoyed Parts 1 and 2 so much. This is horror at its most polarising but will appeal to readers looking for something unexpected.

I’m not exactly sure how to rate this one, the book was split into three parts, part one had me hooked I really enjoyed the writing style and was really invested to find out what was going on, part two I lost a little bit of interest but there was still some intrigue, and part three and especially the ending was a real let down and just left me feeling like I’d wasted my time.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

This has some good moments, and I enjoyed the first section a lot, but the more the plot develops, the less I found myself enjoying the ride. It gets complicated and silly and what was fun at the start eventually becomes a drag

Thank you NetGalley and Random House UK for the digital ARC!
This book, even tho I consider myself to be a major Jo Nesbo fan, I couldn't finish it no matter how hard I tried. It just wasn't for me.
It starts off strong right off the bat but that's not always good because things only get weirder and make no sense from the beginning which is also the reason I couldn't keep reading. Also, I couldn't get behind a horror story that resolves around kids it was too anticlimactic for me.

There's nothing I can say about the plot of this book that won't spoil it. But I will say instead that this book is FAN-TAS-TIC!! It will confuse and beguile the reader, keep you hooked and please persevere because it will all make sense and it is just brilliant. At times horrifyingly ridiculous, at others beautifully poignant, I can't think of any other book anything like this. Amazing, original and completely absorbing.

This was my first book by Jo Nesbo and I picked it up as I’m a fan of Stephen king. I loved it! Was absolutely hooked with it!

This Jo Nesbro novel was quite a surprise for me (not an unpleasant one). Having only ever read his Harry Hole detective fiction previously, I was expecting a dose of conventional Scandi Noir. I suppose, to be fair it is pretty noir, and given that Jo is Norwegian, it is also Scandi; it is, however, far from conventional.
I remained unsure for most of the novel if the genre were science fiction/fantasy/horror or if we had a case of the unreliable narrator, but whatever I settled on, I was undoubtedly gripped from the opening chapter, and found it hard to put the book down thereafter. With two (or more...) major twists to the plot, and - all important for me - a most satisfactory ending, this is an excellent book. Highly recommended if you can cope with the slightly weird!

I am a huge Jo Nesbo fan, particularly the Harry Hole series but others too such as The Kingdom. Therefore I was excited about getting access to this. Sadly I was quite disappointed by it. It read very much like a Young Adult book but I don't think they are the target audience. It won't put me off trying any of his new books but this one just really didn't engage me and I felt reading it was a bit of a chore which was surprising and disappointing.

What a mad little book! Shades of Stephen King and Joe Hill, with a hefty dose of Shirley Jackson thrown in, this is a fun romp about killers, bullies, ghosts, haunted houses, hungry phones, and much more. There's tongue firmly in cheek throughout, and it reads like the author is just having a good time flexing his muscles in yet another genre. Nothing new here, but certainly a great time. And a killer cover design.

As a fan of the Harry Hole novels, I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately it's all over the place. The story flips on its head around the halfway mark and honestly it's difficult to keep track of what is going on, or to care one way or the other.
Tried forcing my way through this book twice, and ended up giving up at the 75% on the second attempted reading.
It's just too weird for my personal tastes, the characters arent particularly interesting or well drawn and the plot lurches all over the place. By the time I gave up on it, the whole thing had taken on a strange, almost dream-like quality to the narrative.
Not for me.

This book sadly wasn't for me, I found it a bit too hard going and the twists and turns frustrating not exciting, Disappointing as I di usually like the author but I suppose you can't please everyone.

Hmm, well, where to begin? This definitively is a book about which you can know too much before starting. Here we have a kid, a newcomer to a rural school after he got farmed out to foster parents, goading a classmate into making a prank phone call from an isolated phone box (ask your father) and seeing the machine swallow up and absorb the younger kid. Of course he's not believed – but it does lead to him getting quite close to the cool, aloof and attractive girl in school. Then something else happens, and as with the first one it's done in a kind of Spielberg/Joe Dante kind of way, and again it leads to a missing child and problems for our lad's rep. But between him and the cool girl and others he can triangulate the source of a lot of problems on an isolated "Night House" – but surely the evil there is just too much for one young teenager?

We then have a mahoosive switcheroo, which to some small extent was guessable. And I have to say why, without really stoking any embers sending spoilers up anyone's chimney. The thing is – is 'thing' there to hide from 'problem', 'issue' or something else, even I don't know – the thing is that the place was really off-kilter. It was an American town, with many Nordic names but many that weren't. I had to google things to see if it wasn't some lame Americanising translation that put the names that way.

All I can say is that the book kind of allows for a way to justify a lot of its oddity, but a lot that it doesn't. Some obvious wordplay is given a solution and a purpose, others not. The book proves quite nicely playful in taking people we thought we knew and presenting them in a very different scenario, as part of a full-on Twilight Zone (coloured, not the B/W) kind of bonkers-fest.

But I don't know. I thought the first section the most coherent, the most attractive to my reading tastes – and the way many have pointed out it's in a YA style probably says much about me. By the finish, when we are supposed to have seen so much of Nesbo's tricksiness I was on less firm ground. (Oh, and I think anyone who says the whole thing is YA probably didn't bother finishing it… Just sayin'.) I think what we end up with is a traditional curate's egg – a mush of the great and the poor. The whole thing, as the horrendously naff cover wants us to believe, is done in playful style, but the levels of play are never really justified. The piece isn't resolved, and it doesn't earn its quirks imho. I was glad to read it – it certainly didn't take much time or much labour – but there are certainly better ways to spend one's Saturday. Three stars is to some extent a rounding-up.

This book just wasn't for me. It's split into three parts which are supposed to be shockingly different, but are actually quite similar, in that none of them grabbed my interest or made me care about the characters.

I can see what the author is trying for here, but it all felt very derivative and just not executed well enough to pique curiosity in the reader. If you'd like to read twisty, psychological horror, I would suggest Catriona Ward is who you are after.

Nesbo is a super-successful author. so lots of readers must love his style, it just wasn't for me.

This was a strange story with a very abrupt conclusion. I think I worked out what was happening but it was very complicated and I think mental illness was involved. I needed to find out what had hapeened but not entirly sure I did. Left me with questions.

This book was so good! It was intriguing and really drawed me in. I'll be reading more of this authors work.

Jo Nesbo is mainly known for his Scandi Noir novels, namely the Harry Hole series. Here he flips the script and gives us a nicely crafted slice of horror.
I want to avoid going into plot details here, it's best to go in as a blank slate.
All in all I loved this book, it twists and turns throughout. Once you think it's heading in a certain direction, Nesbo then flips things 180° and then back again. In summary this is a thought provoking masterclass of a horror and I'm hoping there will be more to come on the same lines from this author.
Highly recommended!