Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

I have always loved scary stories. Hauntings, demons, and crazed slashers were the subjects of my library picks for many years. What started with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps graduated to Stephen King and Clive Barker. Yet, up until recently I really only knew of a select few authors who wrote horror. The pool of stories was very shallow for me and I was always craving more. I have recently found some amazing people on Twitter who have opened my eyes to countless authors.

This book was introduced to me by my twitter friend Amber Reu who is singled handedly making sure everyone knows about this book. At the time I write my own review she has read this 4 times and added updates to her review on Goodreads. I can’t imagine how many Kindle codes she has purchased and given away so people know how fantastic this book is. I was one of the lucky individuals who got this from Amber and I am forever grateful.

Before I get into the book let me just say, I had no idea who Josh Malerman was. As far as I knew Bird Box was just a Sandra Bullock movie I watched on Netflix. I was ignorant to the fact the movie was based off the book by Josh Malerman. I also clearly never paid close attention to the cover of this book until well into starting this. This was my first read by him and I am so excited to have a back catalogue to keep me busy.

This book revolves around eight-year-old Bela and her parents. She is a happy child who loves her parents and loves to dance and be the center of attention. Along with Bela, her Mommy, and Daddo, we met Bela’s friend, Other Mommy who lives in Bela’s closet. The summary on Goodreads describes other Mommy as a malevolent entity always asking Bela, “Can I go into your heart”. This is the perfect vague description which made me ever curious to learn more about this creature.

Other Mommy mainly lives in the shadows and is revealed slowly throughout the book. The way she looks is always changing with the story and that really helped build the intensity and constant feeling of dread, suspense and just creepiness that kept me from putting this book down. Not knowing exactly what other Mommy is will haunt you throughout leaving you with a bad feeling you cannot shake.

As the book progresses little “incidents” begin to occur around Bela alerting the reader that Other Mommy is getting stronger, more intense. Threatening the Bela and the family putting stress on them to the point of breaking. This book also deals with some other deep family issues that we learn from Bela’s parents as the story progresses. This brought a lot of other emotions to the story that connects you with Bela and family creating very deep and complex characters.

I felt this book had several sections that could have been the end of the book and I would have been satisfied. I’d hit these spots and think, what could possibly happen that requires another 200 pages? Malerman kept me guessing and the surprises were fantastic which helped build to an ending I didn’t expect. Sorry, I don’t do spoilers.

This book completely captured the feeling of being a kid and afraid of the thing under your bed or the monster in your closet. It is impossible to not connect your own childhood fears and insecurities while reading this making it a truly frightening read. Malerman does an amazing job of capturing the jump scare in print which helped make this book very hard to put down. I found every opportunity to pick this up and read for as long as I could 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃. I highly recommend this book and it is definitely one of the best books of 2024 for me. Looking over other reviews I’m not alone in this feeling.