Words of a Bibliophile

As a so-called domestic suspense/thriller, this is more bizarre and disturbing than I initially thought but not very suspenseful or thrilling. A bunch of guests come to stay in a fancy London home and somehow end up dominating it over its original occupants, leading to devastating consequences. I was confused by how things are apparently just allowed to happen — from strange, cult-like behaviors to truly appalling acts — and how powerless the household seems to be in the face of these newcomers, whose source of such strong, overpowering influence is never really clear to me. This influence is told to the reader but not really shown, perhaps due to the limits of the first-person narration of the past events.

I also found it disappointing how the sample for the Simon & Schuster Audio edition that I bought spoils a major plot point, because it's taken not from one of the beginning chapters like in most audiobooks but from much later in the novel — almost three-fourths in, actually. After a certain point it was easy for me to guess the rest of what really happened in the house, aside from a few small surprises, and the resolution to the story falls flat. I preferred the narrators for Libby's and Henry's parts rather than the stiff-voiced one for Lucy's.