Book Review — The Last House on Needless Street

Title: The Last House on Needless Street
Author: Catriona Ward
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-250-81264-3
Opening Lines: "Today is the anniversary of Little Girl with Popsicle."

Rating

"In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three.

"A young girl who isn't allowed outside, not after the last time.

"A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.

"And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible"

"An unspeakable secret binsd them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all."

~ Jacket copy

Ted loves to watch the birds. Ted would be happy if he could watch the birds all day. The birds make him calm. However, when someone kills the birds, everything starts to change for Ted. Ted's world is upended and things start to crack. His relationship with his daughter becomes more chaotic and heated. His cat—his most precious and prized family member—starts to turn toxic. And, worst of all, he thinks someone has broken into his house. If only the birds had been left alone.

Warning, the following contains spoilers!

The Last House on Needless Street has been all the rage on horror book forums, and it always has a huge presence in Barnes & Noble. With gift certificate money to burned, I decided to give it a chance, Besides, based on the jacket copy, there is no way to go wrong with a Bible reading cat! And, at the beginning, I was extremely engaged. However, as the book progressed, it felt as though Ward was trying to check specific boxes, and it ended up falling short.

First and foremost, this book is not horror. The argument might be made due to the internal struggle Ted faces on a daily bases, as well as long-term child abuse (both physical and emotional); however, those issue do not make a book horror. If you're going into this hoping for a chilling horror story or something following the escapades of a serial killer, get ready for disappointment. 

At the onset of the book, it is obvious that both Ted and Dee are unreliable narrators. Ward's writing style suggests that Ted is hiding something from the reader, or he suffers from some type of mental illness. This narration style usually helps create a great suspenseful atmosphere; however, it left me feeling rather disoriented and dizzy. That being said, Ward did an outstanding job writing the unreliability, and maybe that was her ultimate goal . . .

Aside from Ted, the characters were flat and two dimensional. Even after learning about LuLu's true fate, I still cannot decide why Ward chose to include Dee. She was . . . As a reader, I felt as though Dee was going to have more of a substantial role in the novel, but she just kind of fizzled out. Her role got smaller and smaller as the story progressed, and there was no true purpose to include her. Honestly, what was the point of her lake backstory, the truth behind LuLu's death, etc.? It was wasted book. 

And then that leads to Ted. He was well-written. Do not get me wrong! Ward did an excellent job with him! For me, that's where is ends. I knew he was suffering with mental illness as soon as the book started. About a third of the way through the book, I figured out he suffered with DID; however, it took a bit longer to piece together which characters were his fractured psyche. Even though playing with DID might be interesting, the new TikTok trend of DID made it fall flat and feel like a trope. 

Ted's mom . . . Ugh. She could have been a truly interesting character, especially with the whole pseudo Angel of Death thing going on. Yet, Ward glossed over that. She left hints throughout the novel, and then barely touched it with a gossamer veil at the end. 

This book was a resounding meh for me. The writing style was excellent. Ward included some truly interesting twists and had me second-guessing many of my initial ideas. And, at first, the book held me captive. Once I finished it . . . Yeah, not so much.