I belong to a Mystery/Thriller Book Club, and we decided to choose a spooky book for the month of October. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer (not to be confused with the other We Used to Live Here by Daniel Hurst that I also read and reviewed) is a creepy, unsettling maze of a story that leaves you with more questions than answers, but not in a frustrating way.
Eve and her partner Charlie are flippers, and their newest house was billed as a “cozy retreat” in the wooded heart of the Pacific Northwest. They’ve only just started working on the house but Eve is already ready to leave it behind. There’s just something creepy about it, and she’s been feeling on edge. One evening a family comes to her door, with the husband Thomas claiming that he used to live here, and would they be able to have a look around? Eve is a self-admitted pushover and can’t bring herself to say no, so lets them come in despite her misgivings. Things immediately go sideways. The youngest child goes missing, Eve sees a ghostly figure in the basement, and a massive rainstorm closes the bridge off the mountain, requiring the family to stay the night. As more strange things keep happening – didn’t that room used to have a stained glass window? – Eve begins questioning everything, even her own sanity. Can she and Charlie escape whatever is haunting this old house?
It took me a little bit to get into this book, mostly because Eve was such a pushover that I got annoyed. But as the creepiness and strange incidents increased I found myself drawn into the story. About halfway through I realized something I’d missed before, and went back through jotting down clues and taking notes – that’s how into it I was! Like I said, the book doesn’t answer everything – in fact, it leaves quite a lot open to interpretation, and there’s the potential for the story to continue. But it doesn’t feel like a copout, it feels like we got a glimpse into a liminal space that we were never meant to access, and the book’s ending is this parallel world closing the metaphorical door. But now we know there is a door, and the possibilities are endless.
We Used to Live Here is creepy, tangled, and utterly un-put-downable. After I finished I immediately went online to read reviews and reactions. I found out that Kliewer had originally written this for the Reddit community r/NoSleep, and there is a strong community of fans on Reddit still posting and theorizing today. If you like finding hidden clues, mysteries within a mystery, and a pretty big creep factor, We Used to Live Here is the perfect book for spooky season.