Unique, chilling and atmospheric horror. I was excited to dive into this one after the positive reviews I'd read. This was my first book by this author, but I have seen the movie version of Bird Box. I'd seen a few reviewers dislike the child POV throughout the book. For me, that was what sold it and gave it something different and unique. It gave unreliable narrator feels as everything is filtered through the perspective of a child. While i liked this one a lot, I felt like it needed a little something more to elevated it from good to great. The events were chilling and suspenseful and it felt like this could easily be adapted into a movie and would work well. I'd have liked to get more backstory or information about what was happening and the ending felt a bit underwhelming. I would certainly read more by this author in the future.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.
Gripped from the start! Some bits weren’t as jump scary as I’d like but I still enjoyed it.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publishers, for the ARC. This book started off brilliantly, and I thought I had a solid 4/5 read on my hands. It could have been a great book, but the last 20 to 30% felt inconsistent and left me wanting. Also, some of the things the parents did when they knew the entity was waiting to find their child alone just didn’t add up. Lastly, I kind of guessed the ending, being a millennial who has watched her fair share of horror movies. So, a 3.5/5 from me.

This is tough for me. Whilst I did enjoy the story, I didn’t find it that spooky. I think being in the pov of an 8 year made it less spooky for me. I also found it hard to picture what other mommy looked like in my head. Parts of this felt very repetitive and did take me out the story.

I did enjoy the premise, as much as it wasn’t spooky there are definitely parts that were a little creepy. But I would have enjoyed it more if the book was shorter and other mommy was more spooky.

Having seen "Birdbox", and being a horror fan generally, I went into this with high hopes. Unfortunately, I just didn't find it as scary as the hype has been making out. It has quite a sparse writing style, and became repetitive, so the book as a whole was a disappointment. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review of the book.

Bela is not a happy child. With few friends and a lonely lifestyle, she is obviously going to have an invisible friend. Someone to talk to, someone to confide in, someone who cares. Mommy and Daddo have their own issues. Not as loving towards each other as they once were, even Bela notices they are drifting apart. But never mind, Bela has Other Mommy. But even Other Mommy has started to change and Bela is not quite so happy with her as she once was. And she keeps asking the same question!

I liked this book, especially the pared back writing style. The story flowed and the tension certainly built up. However I felt a little uncomfortable with the characterisation of the parents and their attitude towards Bela. The excessive drinking, the ‘smoking’, whilst they left her in the care of a babysitter, but still allowed her to mingle was strange. Letting her perform her dancing to a room full of inebriated guests was cringey. This disturbed me more than the Other Mommy!!! Thank goodness Bela had Grandma Ruth!

Billed as a wholly unique tale of true horror is a stretch too far. It was a good but not unique scary story.

Thank you NetGalley and Pan Macmillan.

INCIDENTS AROUND THE HOUSE BY JOSH MALERMAN.
Release date set for the 27th of March 2025.
I've read a lot of horror over the last few months and this book just didn't do it for me unfortunately.
It's not bad it just wasn't for me.

A haunted house novel that is now haunting me.

I've been saying to people for a while that horror books and movies rarely unsettle me and even more rarely scare me. It's ironic to think I'd been saying that, but then this book turns up on my doorstep and invalidates that statement.
I'm not sure if that's due to an uncanny amount of similarities between the events of this book and my life or down to the sheer brilliance of this novel. There were moments when I had to just stop reading to digest what was transpiring. I guess what I'm saying is that this is a tense and at times scary read.

The story is told in such a way that you are in Bela's shoes, you get to see through her eyes and experience the thoughts of someone experiencing so many new things and feelings at such a tender age. I think this is what works so well in this novel, to experience the innocence of youth firsthand firsthand and also happens to make the not-so-innocent even more nefarious.
Yes, this is a haunted house story but it's also a story of discovery, the loss of innocence, a story of youth, of observation, and most importantly a story of us and the human condition. All this wrapped up in a well-crafted horror story.
Congratulations Josh Malerman, this one's a winner!

I was told this would keep me up at night and I would have to sleep with the light on. I ended up listening to most of it at midnight over two nights with only my bed lamp.
I would call myself a wimp. I hate jump scares. I will not watch horror. I did not find this scary.
Maybe I am desensitised to books.

This is told from the point of view of 8 year old Bela. The audiobook is a good format for this, because we really hear her innocent young nativity. Until it is all ruined.
She has a loving family, but she is also visited by Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”  

Things start ramping up as Bela continues to refuse and soon her parents have no choice to believe their daughter.

Maybe the reason I didn’t find this as scary as everyone is else, is that I struggle to picture most scenes. Only certain authors have ever made me visualise things even fuzzily.

The revelations towards the end were predictable.
Basically every single adult in this book makes every single bad decision possible and poor Bela is the one to reckon with it.

The ending was underwhelming.
Also, the referring to her dad as ‘Daddo’ really got on my nerves.

This makes it sound like I hated it. I didn’t, it was pretty addicting, but perhaps not the HORROR I was expecting.

There’s an episode of Doctor Who where a child is terrified of a monster in the cupboard and another one where scribbles come to life; and that terrified me way more.

This book was terrifying. I binged it in five hours and it was so scary that I loved every page of it. I couldn’t give it 5 stars, because it became a tiny bit repetitive at one point and disrupted my vibe.

But oh my god! The other mommy was scary AF!!!!!

Bela is sad. Her parent are fighting, she feels like they lie to her, she is lonely, she struggles to make friends, but she loves her family. What does Bela needs? A friend. Who’s her new friend? A terrifying ghost, YAY!
A demonic presence, under the “name” of The other mommy, is the one that makes Bela laugh, she talks with her, she is hugging her and she’s with Bela all the time. Sounds funny, RIGHT? It’s not.
The other mommy scared the shit out of the. Her appearances are horrid, she’s everywhere. In the walls, in the bathroom, on the floor, on the bed, on the stairs. She wants Bela and that’s that.

Now talking about the book.
This was my first time reading Josh Malerman. I saw “Bird box”, but didn’t read the book. It was a nice movie, but it wasn’t horror. Then I saw how popular “Incidents around the house” was and I wanted to read it. The FOMO was real. Maybe I should’ve stayed with the fomo.
This author knows how to scare people. It was awful to see how Bella’s feelings affected this presence and the people around her. I know it was because of her parents, being lied and feeling unloved lead to ghosts in your cabinet (they don’t, but you get it). I was so so sad for her throughout the whole book and I hated how her parents treated her. Her mother was the worst and I judged her a lot. I am not a mother, but if my child would say to me that her “friend” is a ghost, I would believe her. Sometimes it’s more than kids imagination. Her parents weren’t present in her life, even if they were there.

I saw some reviews that said the writing and the format was not as great as the story. Well, the book is written by Bela’s pov. Imagine how an 8 year old child would talk. Like a kid. I actually enjoyed a lot the pace and the story. Bela, with her thoughts and feelings, made the book more dreadful and interesting, while at the same time, scared the shot out of me more and more with every page. The other mommy made my heart racing and my back was sweating, so that was so fun!

I rated this one 4 stars because i was a tiny bit disappointed with the ending. I wanted more or.. less? I just felt something was missing.

Overall, without joking, it was a terrifying, horrible, terrible experience and I loved every page of it. It was scary AF, I read it with the light on and you should read it too.

“Other Mommy is already standing outside my closet doors.
I don’t want her to make the face I think she’s about to make.
I know she wants to talk about carnations.
I go into my bedroom.
And I wave at her.
And I sit on the end of my bed, where I know she liked to talk.
She walks over to me now. Sometimes it’s like she floats.
She sits on my bed.
And she asks:
Can I go into your heart?”.


No.