NetGalley ARC | Something in the Walls

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐

Ugh. Yet another gorgeous cover that tricked me. But to be fair, the synopsis got me, too. This is my second book by this author and will likely be my last, as both were only two-star reads for me.

The main character, Mina, has just finished her schooling to become a child psychologist. She's having trouble gaining experience in her field, so she is a bit unmoored as she thinks almost exclusively about her upcoming wedding to Oscar, and the death of her brother many years ago.

Mina attends a grief-share type group to cope with her brother's death and there she meets a journalist named Sam. He shares with Mina the story of Alice, a thirteen year old who claims a witch is haunting her. Alice travels to the remote village where Alice and her family live, hoping to make a difference and help the family. Mina needs the money and the experience; Sam will get the story; Alice will be cured; everyone will be happy.

Instead, Alice's behavior becomes increasingly worse and intense. It doesn't help that the residents of the small village still believe deeply in superstition and witchcraft. They know how to deal with this evil themselves and don't expect Mina to understand what must be done.

Sounds GREAT, right??

I was super into this one, but then we move on from Alice being a witch and never getting any conclusion about that. The twist wasn't even a twist, it was so obvious once the story started to meander away from the set-up towards a completely different story. I still would've liked the book if there had been a real resolution, and just completely ignored the first half of the book.

Once I started this one, I was hooked. I could not put it down, but the complete pivot away from eveything else was jarring and disappointing. It wasn't even ambiguous, which can be phenomenal when done well. There was just...nothing.

I like to think I am intelligent, so I'm not sure if I missed something, but...what was in the walls? How did I miss this piece of information that seems super important, given the title of the book? Yet when I started looking at other reviews, I found I was not the only one confused by this whole book, after loving the beginning.

It's not just that we don't know the answer to that, but the whole thing about Alice being haunted by a witch, or being a witch? That just gets completely dropped. We hear nothing more about it with the reveal of a child molester within the village. It would be easy to point to that and say that's the source of Alice's behavior.

But it's not, and that makes everything all the more confusing than it already is.

Not recommended.