Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak a creepy mystery thriller that keeps you guessing from start to end. With interesting characters and a dynamic plot this was a read to check out for sure, so let’s get into it!
Main Characters:
- Mallory Quinn: After overcoming her addiction to intravenous drugs and working through some hard trauma Mallory gets a great new opportunity being the live-in nanny for a kind family, and finds that this new situation may be a little too perfect
- Caroline, Ted, and Teddy Maxwell: The family that Mallory goes to work for, seems perfect on paper and accepts Mallory for who she is even her past, have some pretty strict values when it comes to raising their son but overall seem like kind people
- Adrien: A college student living in the town Mallory moves to for her summer job, the two connect but Mallory struggles to tell him about her past
- Mitzi: Maxwell’s neighbour who is a bit on the spiritual side
My Review
I really enjoyed Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. I found the plot and the characters to be really interesting, and I enjoyed the different topics and themes sprinkled throughout the book. While of course being a mystery book the book follows themes such as fantasy in the forms of ghosts and spirits, and also has some horror elements as well. There were a few times when my spine was defiantly tingling. While the mystery itself was really great there was one aspect to it that I kind of figured out early on. It didn’t ruin the book for me at all but there were some aspects to the mystery that the reader may see coming.
I gave Hidden Pictures an 8.5/10 rating. The book revolves around Mallory and her attempt to pick her life back up after suffering some crushing blows and turning to drugs to numb the pain. After spending years in active addiction Mallory got clean and is looking for her next opportunity in life. Her sponsor Russel has a job opportunity for her to work for a family being their nanny for the summer while the parents work. It’s a live-in opportunity which is perfect for a 21-year-old trying to start their life off on the right foot after struggling through so much. I have to say that I really enjoyed Mallory’s character and it was hard to not root for her throughout the book. There was this weird part of her character where it’s presented that she turned to religion after getting sober, and it’s a big aspect of her life but it’s kind of talked about very little in the book. I thought this may have been a way to explain some of her later views in the book, but I am not a Christian so I could be wrong I didn’t think that they believed in ghosts and stuff so I found it weird that she is such a believer in that stuff but is also a strong believer in god? Maybe I have that understanding wrong but it just seemed odd to me. I mean don’t get me wrong it didn’t bother me at all but I wasn’t sure what the point of bringing up what is usually such a defining character aspect in some areas just to not really have it play a big role at all. I appreciated the way that Jason approached Mallory’s recovery and I felt like he approached it really respectfully given what I do for work I can say it was decently accurate. I think it was definitely a softer approach to addiction but it also showed some very raw and difficult parts to the disease as well.
Things start to pick up in the book when Mallory starts to spend alone time with Teddy and starts to notice some odd things with him. Teddy has this imaginary friend named Anya who causes him to spend a lot of time by himself and also causes him to talk to himself when he thinks no one is listening. Teddy is a naturally very artistic kid, and Mallory begins to notice some weird things in his drawings. The issue though is sometimes Teddy will claim Anya drew it not him. When Mallory starts to see a pattern in the drawings she thinks that something else may be going on in this house, but the question is what and why?
I enjoyed Mallory having a companion throughout the book that wasn’t the Maxwell’s whom she could bump ideas off of. Adrien was a nice addition to the book and would often listen and believe in Mallory when no one else would. An aspect that I didn’t like about the relationship however was how Mallory lied about her life to him. When it comes to addiction one of the aspects of the fellowship is owning your truth and so I guess if anything that may have been one of the most real things she did in the book in which she became so comfortable in her recovery that she didn’t feel like she needed to identify with it anymore with new people who came into her life. That was really one of the only aspects of their relationship that made me cringe though. I felt like he was a good sidekick to Mallory especially when everyone else she tries to tell about her theories thinks she’s either crazy or using again.
With an interesting mystery and interesting characters, it makes for a really good read. I enjoyed all the twists that played out in the mystery as they added a lot of unexpected action into the book. I will say that the aspect about the ghosts and spirits was definitely the most creepy. The idea that Anya may be processing people to draw out her past was interesting, and one I have yet to see yet. The book on the surface seems mundane with a young woman trying to turn her life around working for an average family, but under the surface, there is a lot more to find. I would definitely recommend this one if you’re in the mood for a good mystery read that has aspects of horror and fantasy involved in it as well.
*** Spoilers ahead beware***
As I had said before I figured out a small part of one of the big twists but the rest I didn’t see coming at all.
When it comes to the drawings Mallory comes to the conclusion that Anya at one point lived in this house and was killed and is trying to get her story out there in other ways. Caroline and Ted of course think she is crazy and worry that she is using again when she brings the topic up to them. They shut her down quickly and tried to get her and Teddy to move on from the drawings. Mallory just can’t seem to let it go through and with Adrien’s help can start to put the puzzle together.
To shorten it down by quite a bit it turns out that Anya’s name isn’t really Anya and she isn’t a ghost that possesses Mallory and Teddy… well that’s not 100% confirmed. Mallory gets let go from her position when she wakes up from a nap one day, having overslept majorly and also having found she drew all over the Maxwell’s walls. It’s also at this time that Adrien learns about her past and leaves out of frustration for Mallory’s lies. Before this happened Mallory had asked for the help of Mitzi, the Maxwell’s older and labelled crazy neighbour who was well known for connecting with spirits. After they do this Mitzi randomly dies and Mallory starts to conclude something more is going on here.
I won’t exactly break down how it’s exposed but it eventually comes to light that Teddy was drawing those weird pictures from memory and not because Anya was making him. Well… it turns out that Teddy isn’t him after all. One night before her last day working for the Maxwell’s Mallory and Teddy are swimming. Teddy ends up needing help to get changed and Mallory for the first time sees that Teddy is not a biological boy. In Anya’s pictures, she presented missing a little girl and through the weird message on the Ouija board, Mallory concludes that it must be Teddy. Mallory in a very stupid way confronts the Maxwells about what’s going on and the truth comes out. Teddy is not their child. Caroline kidnapped Teddy as a toddler from a woman whom she deemed unfit, ultimately killing the mother to keep Teddy. To keep it a secret the two lied and were able to create this story about having Teddy while being abroad.
Once Mallory knows all of this they attempt to OD her on purpose to make it seem like she relapsed and died. What Caroline didn’t suspect though was that Ted had a crush on Mallory and the whole time planned to take her and run away from it all. Caroline kills Ted when she catches him trying to sneak Mallory out. Mallory can break away and get Teddy. It’s Teddy who kills Caroline in what Mallory assumes was her mother’s spirit taking over and saving her daughter. Teddy takes back her old name and is returned to her father whom she was ultimately kidnapped from all those years ago.
There’s this kind of loose end in the air in which we the readers question the spiritual element of the book and if Teddy’s mother’s spirit was really there, or if it was just Teddy’s trauma finally having a way to present itself. I mean I think the ghost aspect has to be real because why else would Mallory have done a drawing and not just Teddy who experienced the trauma? There’s kind of this inclination at the end that Mallory may be spiritually connected but again there isn’t really a full proof conclusion on that. What I had figured out in the book was that Teddy may not be Caroline and Ted’s child. After Mallory started to talk more about this child that was coming up in the photos I really started to think that this was Teddy but I didn’t see the whole kidnapped and actually being a girl thing coming. Super twisty.
Overall the book ended nicely with Teddy back with her family and Mallory and Adrien starting a relationship together. Altogether a really interesting read with a lot of different elements. The different aspects of the book don’t get jumbled up at all and run together really smoothly throughout the book. With a riveting mystery and dynamic characters at the heart of it all it’s definitely a book I would recommend to mystery thriller lovers.
Have you read Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak before? What did you think? I hope you enjoyed this review! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review!
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