Lisa Jewell: The Family Upstairs (Hardcover, 2019, Atria Books)
Hardcover
Published Oct. 21, 2019 by Atria Books.
Jewell has a way with the quietly creepy subgenre of domestic suspense. Her books, this one included, often rely on the kind of passive spying we do on our neighbors and loved ones—the kind of spying that uncovers unsettling secrets. In this book, the heroine, Libby Jones, has reached her twenty-fifth birthday and thus learns what her long-dead parents left to her: a house in London’s chichi Kensington neighborhood. But while Libby has been going about her life without incident when she becomes an heiress everything changes: she also learns of the violence in her family’s past and has no choice but to try and figure out what happened to her parents. (Review by Lisa Levy on crimereads.com )
This is a sort of 'back and forth in time' story, describing things that happened and are happening in a thoughtful and intricate reveal.
The characters are believable and real. The plot is well crafted and exciting. It was enjoyable and interesting, so I'm glad to have spent time with it 👍
I'd give this one 3.5 stars, and maybe even 4 for its genre, which I'd describe as "modern thriller" along the lines of "The Girl on the Train" or "Gone Girl." It's a fun summer read with short chapters and a good bit of intrigue. It could've been even stronger if it hadn't been so over-the-top (in a VC Andrews/Flowers in the Attic kind of way) in employing sex as a plot device. Even so, it was a fun fast read.
I'm a bit torn on this book. I raced through it. It was very easy reading, and with the perspective changing (between 3 characters) each chapter, there was a feeling of just needing to keep going to get each story. But the mystery of what happened in the 80s never felt satisfying. It felt unrealistic, and the further I got into the book, the more I realised that I just didn't believe it. The end left me rolling my eyes rather than sighing in contentment.
