I honestly liked this one and for those who are looking for a book to read for Halloween. The only reason why I gave this one 4 stars was honestly towards the end the long paragraphs of people’s dialogue just did my head in. I just needed some type of sentence breaks I know that Malerman was doing that to make you more enmeshed in the story, but it’s up there with “House of Leaves” for me. I think I would have liked this better in hardback or paperback form. It was really hard to read that way in an ebook. I honestly had to take a few breaks because my eyes felt like they were going to dry out.
“Incidents Around the House” follows 8 year old Bella. Bella is happy with her Mommy and Daddo, but she’s also happy with someone she calls Other Mommy. But when Other Mommy persists about Bella letting her into her heart, she gets scared and Other Mommy starts letting herself be known to other people outside of Bella.
I thought that the character of Bella was written very well. Malerman writes her like an 8 year old and with the same type of thoughts I think an 8 year old would have. Bella though you can see is dealing with the fact a monster is after her and her parent’s marriage isn’t the great thing she thought it was. There is a talk of the loss of innocence in this book a lot, but I think for most of us, we tend to lose that innocence when we see our parents as just taller people who make mistakes, are not always right, and sometimes make terrible decisions that will hurt us. You get to see Bella and her mother, father, and even grandmother slowly start to realize that too many of the secrets they have all kept are the reason that Other Mommy was even able to get a hold on things.
I thought that Malerman did a great job with the adults in this one too, but man oh man did some of the adults suck.
I thought the overall plot and writing was really good, but as I said above, the long paragraphs with no breaks after a while started wrecking my flow and I found myself having to re-read things a few times.
I do have to say that I think that the whole book pretty much radiates tension. The house, sounded scary and small, but somehow big at the same time. The family starts moving around to other houses, motels, even their car and realize that no place is really safe.
I really liked the ending and thought Malerman did a great job of not letting up the gas and showing us this story ever only had one ending. I do wonder where Other Mommy came from, we get a hint here and there, but I would have liked to had more definitive answers.