A review by minimicropup
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Thank you for validating my nightmares?
If you also have a deeply irrational fear of ‘what if this moment is only a dream and one day I wake up in the past, in pain, or in parallel universe?’, you will probably Love and Hate this for making it all feel Real.
 
Energy: Metaphysical. Acute. Instinctive. 
Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in an isolated rural area of Oregon.
Perspective: Our MC and their spouse flip old homes. Their recent purchase seems beyond saving, requiring a complete rebuild. When a father arrives hoping to quickly share his childhood home with his family before it’s gone, they feel obligated to let them in. 
Between chapters we get morse code alongside seemingly random ads, research papers, obituaries, and articles. 
 
🐕 Howls: The nightmares. 
🐩 Tail Wags: The nightmares. How seemingly minor decisions snowball. Making the ‘impossible’ feel possible on an innate level. Horror that hits hard for homebodies and introverts. Eve and her reactions. The pacing and ending. Easily imagining the scares.  
 
🤔 Random Thoughts:
The gradual building of unease reminded me of the beginning of Lost (but this ends much better). 
 
I totally get how the ending will let some readers down. For me, it made the story feel more real, like this could happen…or is happening. We get no answers but can invest in inferring an ending. This could be a good book club discussion pick depending on your tastes.  
 
Visceral descriptions of the horrors. Sometimes descriptions of scary moments are too cartoonish in my mind, but this was subtle and didn’t knock me out of the story, it was making me see it. I still see it…
 
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🤓 Reader Role: Tagging along with Eve, hearing her thoughts, sometimes in the corner of a room with her, other times trying to see something but with our view obstructed.
🗺️ World-Building: Immersive, atmospheric, chaotic, claustrophobic. Easy to feel the energy and build the layout of the house in your mind. 
🔥 Fuel: Atmospheric tension and twisty turns. How long will Eve have to entertain this family? When will her spouse get back? What is so ‘off’ about this family? How can she get them to leave without being rude? Where is her spouse? What is happening in her home? 
📖 Cred: Surreal and speculative psychological
 
Mood Reading Match-Up:
Musty basement. Yellow wallpaper. Blowing snow. The Mandela effect. Bacon and eggs. Faint cigarette smoke. Glinting eyes. Rotting wood. Buzzing lights. Ants. Stuffy attic. Shadows. 
  • Strangers as houseguests 
  • r/nosleep style storylines
  • Slowly unraveling unhinged sci fi of the unknown
  • Psychological theoretical what-ifs 
  • Introvert horror
  • Randomness
  • Mostly plot, not sure why anything is happening
  • Go with the flow confusions
  • Slow and steady pacing with hits of spooks without typical ‘high stakes’ moments
  • Open to reader interpretation endings
  • Shadows and glimpses of things that go bump in the night
  • Swipes of liminal space
  • The past lives of Homes
  • Unsolved mysteries
 
Content Heads-Up: Homophobia (religious, insinuated). Panic attacks. Sleepwalking, night terrors, sleep paralysis. Mental illness (delusions, paranoia, psychosis). Religious trauma (guilt, fear, shaming). Institutionalization.
 
Rep: Lesbian. Queer. Heterosexual. Ex-Christian. White and ambiguously described Americans.
 
📚 Format: Library Digital 
 
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🥺 Potential Fav of 2024
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