Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into the second Josh Malerman book I have checked out, Incidents Around the House. Having enjoyed Bird Box quite a bit I was expecting to enjoy this one much more than I did. Overall, the plot isn’t terrible, but it was executed in a way I just did not enjoy, with characters I struggled to follow.
Main Characters:
Bela – A young girl and our main character in the story. The book is told through the perspectives of herself and her family, and her character addition added a very childish nature to the book. Bela and her family have their lives turned upside down when Bela tells her parents that a woman named Other Mommy has been living in her room for a long time and is looking for something from her that she isn’t sure she can give.
Ursula and Russ – Bela’s parents, who have their own secrets just like their daughter. Struggle to navigate how to protect their family from this paranormal being that is looking to destroy them.
Other Mommy – The paranormal entity haunting Bela is genuinely creepy in concept. The idea itself is strong and definitely has the potential to be deeply unsettling.
My Review
I really, really, thought I was going to like this one so much more than I did. Sadly, Incidents Around the House goes wrong in so many ways, and not in an enjoyable way. I found myself so aggravated by the tone of the book, the childish aspects, and just how these characters were handling themselves. It also just ended up being kind of boring and repetitive as it went on. Given that Bela is a young girl, I understood why it was written this way; she’s a young child trying to process terrifying things happening around her, but personally, I just could not connect with the childish narration style. Overall, I landed on rating the book a 4/10, and while I wouldn’t really recommend this one to others, I do encourage checking out some of Josh Malerman’s other stuff, because it is much better.
The story follows young Bela, whose life becomes increasingly terrifying when a paranormal entity she calls “Other Mommy” begins haunting her home. As the presence grows more invasive and dangerous, Bela’s family struggles to understand what’s happening and how to protect her. Told through Bela’s childlike perspective and her untrustworthy parents’ eyes, the story leans heavily into psychological and supernatural horror as reality becomes harder to trust.
I enjoyed Bird Box by Josh Malerman, so I went into this expecting another creepy, tension-filled horror story, but this honestly came close to being a DNF for me. The frustrating part is that the premise itself isn’t bad at all. A young girl being hunted by a horrifying paranormal being? That should absolutely work for me. And there are moments where the concept of Other Mommy feels genuinely unsettling.
The execution just did not land for me personally. The biggest issue was the narration style. Since the story is told through Bela’s perspective, everything is written with a very childlike voice and understanding of the world. I completely understand why Malerman chose to do that; it makes sense for the story, but I just couldn’t get immersed in it. Instead of making things feel creepier or more emotionally impactful, it mostly just frustrated me and made the book feel repetitive.
And honestly, I didn’t find it scary. At all. Which is rough for a horror novel built around atmosphere and tension. The way the characters handled the paranormal situation felt oddly boring to me instead of suspenseful, and I kept waiting for the story to really go there in a way that never fully happened.
I also found myself annoyed with basically everyone in the book, which made it even harder to stay invested emotionally. The pacing didn’t help either. It felt like the story kept circling the same ideas and conversations without enough progression, so instead of tension building, I just found myself losing interest.
The ending was okay. Not terrible, not amazing, just kind of there. It didn’t completely ruin the book for me, but it also didn’t do enough to redeem the reading experience overall.
I don’t think this is an objectively awful book, and I can absolutely see why some readers would connect with it more than I did, especially if the child narration style works for them. But for me, it just never came together.
Definitely not the first Josh Malerman book I’d recommend, but don’t write him off from this review because he is a fantastic writer with lots of good ones to check out. I just hit a dud.
Thank you for checking out this review. I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to subscribe to the page to be one of the first to know when I release a new review.
Baddie Book Reviews 