EDIT: it’s October now and I just thought about this book and I like it a lot less than I thought. This could have been so much better but it just doesn’t even make any sense.

This probably would have been a 4 if the ending wasn’t what it was. I liked the nanny plot and wish they would have done more with that, even making it more extreme maybe. I like the first 80%

SPOILERS BELOW

But this trump, nazi, White supremacist political commentary for the last 20% was just bad. The whole end sequence was just not good. And he gets eaten by coyotes? In the middle of a city basically? Come on.

The Woman in Our House is one of those thrillers which are to literature what Five Guys is to food. It’s a notch upscale from McDonald’s, so you kid yourself it’s not that bad for you, all the while knowing it’s really just junk. The reading experience is hurried, even furtive. Just as you keep on eating fries because they’re there in front of you, you can’t stop reading, impatient to get to the end. The pleasure is in part because you know it’s trashy, but it definitely is pleasurable. In the moment, it seems like exactly what you need. The problem only comes upon reflection. I never want a salad as much as when I’ve just finished a burger, and after tearing through a book I know I won’t remember in two weeks I always resolve to read more Proust.
The protagonist of TWIOUH, Anna, feels burnt out and bored by life as a stay at home parent to her two small children. She tells her husband she wants to go back to work as a literary agent, and hires a live-in nanny. The reader knows before Anna even meets the nanny that she is in fact an imposter, rather than the woman with the sterling references Anna thinks she’s hiring.
My opinion of this book depreciated steadily in the hours after I finished it, as I had more time to reflect on all its absurdities. Even while reading, there were several things which niggled at me. The book is told through alternate viewpoints - which was actually a bit pointless and did little to add tension - but these switch between first person for the main character and third person for the other characters, which felt rather jarring. Why not all first person, since the chapter is headed with each character’s name? Or a close third person narrative throughout? Most egregious of all, at one point the narration mistakenly jumped between the two perspectives, within a few lines on a single page. If this had been some kind of avant-garde experiment in representing Anna’s dissociation from her own life I could probably have handled it, but no, it was just an unforgivable error.
I was hoping for more of a sense of looming menace from this book - on the hired help scale from Mary Poppins to Mrs Danvers, the fake nanny here felt disappointingly tame. Probably best not to analyse the reasons why too deeply, but I really wanted Anna’s kids to feel at serious risk, which they didn’t much, up until the climax. That ending was another big issue I had with the book; it was dependent on a vague neo-Nazi subplot, which felt shoe-horned in as a ready motivation for the true villain, who was little more than a cartoon character.
There was another subplot centred around Anna’s husband’s job, which was so boring and irrelevant I’ve already forgotten the details. Disappointingly, the book focussed on this rather than on plot threads which I did want to read about. I would have loved more about Anna’s inner conflict between her identity as a mother and as a person. As race eventually became a thematic concern in the book, it would have been interesting for this to have been explored more throughout and for Anna’s sense of displacement in this predominantly white enclave to have been developed, alongside her growing sense of displacement in her children’s lives.
I did come to the realisation while reading that I have developed some sort of parental Stockholm syndrome. Such is my fixation with the small dictator who rules my own life, that I kept feeling frustrated that the children weren’t more central characters in this book. I appreciate that this is more symptomatic of the current paucity of my own interests and worldview rather than any actual fault of the book, but I did spend most of it wondering what the baby was thinking about it all. I was both annoyed and highly sceptical about the fact that this baby slept through almost the entire plot, aside from one scene where she conveniently exhibited some highly precocious speech. Note to the author: this is not a typical nine-month-old, and certainly not a fussy one as per your description. This is not the way you win over parents!
I know this review makes it sound as if I hated this book, and I really didn’t. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit whilst actually reading it, and initially rated it four stars, before eventually downgrading this to two. However, if you want something quick to read on the beach, you could do a lot worse. Just don’t expect to feel good about it the next day.

More reviews at www.caitlinwrites.com

The cover of this book is ominous and sets a perfect tone for what is to come in this novel.

Anna is a second time mom who gave up her career to take care of her children. Feeling that she is being left behind by the book publishing industry that she works for, she convinces her husband to hire a nanny. Having come highly recommended, Anna starts to question if the woman in their house isn't who she appears to be when strange things start to happen to the children.

The premise of this book is terrifying and I felt like it could have been a real study of post-partum paranoia and its relationship to the caretaker industry, but the novel bites off way more than I expected. I admired its ambition at times, but there are quite a few plot lines set up that don't get fully fleshed out and characters that are given point of view chapters that don't feel necessary.

Overall, I feel mixed about this novel. There were parts that I really enjoyed, like the building paranoia and how it started to affect her relationship to her husband. But, the tone was completely uneven and even some characters seemed to take tonal shifts that were unexpected made me feel displaced in this world. I wanted to love it, but it was only a like.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read this novel in return for a fair review.

2.5 stars

Love this

This was such a good book. At first I found it slow. But as soon as it picked up I was in love with it. It’s fairly fast paced. Definitely recommend this book.

This is one story that I couldn't put down. I thought it might be a predictable read and though I tugged at a few correct threads, overall I was left surprised and entertained by the unfolding story and overall character development. It was a quick suspense read and I'll pick it up again in a pinch.

I didn’t like this book at all. The characters are not drawing me in. Not keeping my attention and not seeming to do much of anything for me. A nanny should not be so easy to impersonate. The parents would not, in my opinion, hire her without meeting her. A mother should have a better vibe about a nanny so meeting her would have been the first step. Not hiring the way this one was. It just did’t ring true for me. I did not finish this book because I was having a hard time finding it to be believable in so many places.

There are to many books to be read to settle for one I do not like. I think there may be others who will love this book. Others who also will not. I was a not.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC for my honest review.

It’s only a 2 star for me.

This is a thrill of a book, suspenseful and fast paced but without the blood and gore on every page (which I appreciate). Great concept + excellent twists = excellent book, which I would highly recommend for those interested in suspense thrillers.

The Woman in Our House - Andrew Hart

I found myself desperate to know the ending, so much so that I had to literally stop myself from jumping to the final few chapters to figure it out for myself. I am so glad that I stopped myself.
'The Woman in Our House' is an entrancing book. It took me a few chapters to find how addictive this book would be. I became hooked and could not put it down!
Anna Klein is ready to return to her work as a literary agent so, she and her husband Josh decide to hire a live-in nanny, Oaklynn.
When Oaklynn joins their family, horrible incidents begin to occur to Klein children. Anna does not know how to handle what she believes is happening and so I found that my emotions closely mimicked Anna's. I became frustrated for her and hurt along with her. With an unexpected twist in the final few chapters, 'The Woman in Our House' does not disappoint.
Andrew Hart is an intelligent author who knows how to add a mind boggling twist to an ending.
Rating - 3.5/5