Lisa Jewell - The Family Upstairs

In a large house in London’s fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.
In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.
They’ve been dead for several days.
Who has been looking after the baby?
And where did they go?
Two entangled families.
A house with the darkest of secrets.

Comment: I've brought this book from the library and had no reason why, simple curiosity. This is also the second book I try by the author but to be honest, I can't remember anything about the plot of that story anymore.

In this book, we follow several narrators as they explain what happened in a house in Chelsea. The house belongs to a rich family but when the story begins, three bodies are found dead, which had happened for some time already, and a baby is found alive and taken care of somehow. The police investigated but found no real evidence of what took place to lead to such a scenario. Now, 25 years later, the baby is a grown up woman, Libby, and she is told she has inherited the house but when she gets there she believes someone is hiding inside. Investigating the news of that time leads her to the journalist who did some research and they decided to dig deeper... but are they ready to find the truth at last?

As I had experienced with the other book by the author I had tried, it was quite easy to read this book, I found myself turning the pages very quickly because the chapters are short and the plot compelling. In terms of execution, I think this was better than the other book I had tried, but still not as great as it could be.

The story is told from the POV of Libby in third person and Lucy in third person, but also in first person by Henry. At first we don't know the connection between Lucy and the others but it becomes clear soon enough, only it's not simple why life took her in the direction it did. The story is told by these people now, but Henry's POV is in the past, leading us through what happened to them all and why the three bodies were found dead.

Although it seems confusing, it really is much easier while reading, since all this is very distinctive on the page and one always has in mind who is who, narrating. Of course, the interesting part is Henry's, and how things come to be. Basically, everything is centered on the life of those who lived in the house, because Henry's mother let a couple she was friends with to stay there until their situation was solved, and later on, she let another family staying as well. All was great at first, but slowly and manipulatively, everything started to change after a while.

I suppose it might be easy to guess where this is going, and how these "guests" influenced what happened after, and from a psychological POV it seemed the plot is quite believable and realistic, after all insidiousness ins't easy to spot right away. Still, however, it always seemed strange who quickly the family was isolated and that no one really paid attention. Although, who knows, considering how everyone kind of protects their privacy...

I can accept the path taken by the characters and the reasons why they felt like those were their only options, but it's still an odd process to think of. Then, personally, the issue probably is the writing style, because for some secrets to be maintained, and for the suspense of some doubts to be carried on, the author has to change third person here to first person there, has to present things in a way that is simply not logical at times. I get it, but made for the twists to seem both predictable and/or easy to spot.

I had a hard time connecting with Lucy and Libby. Each had a different path in life, and while their personalities are certainly justifiable, neither seemed very interesting, more like a necessary type of character for this specific story. Libby is very likable and a true innocent but she also seemed very bland, her character, I think, wasn't developed as much as it perhaps required. Lucy had to live through traumas and I cannot say her choices are surprising, but... again, I struggled to like her.

Henry is the most fascinating character of them all and the means through which we learn all the important bits, but I had this feeling he was made to seem mysterious on purpose for the final twist, which kind of annoyed me. I think a different explanation for some choices everyone did in the past would have been more believable. I also didn't really like how will this was made to look the work of a disturbed person, I'd have preferred the narrative to go a different direction.

All things considered, this was an intriguing story, had great elements and vibe, but there are things that I feel didn't really enrich the plot, but had to be included for other things to make sense. Thus, part of the suspense feels weak...

Grade: 7/10

Lisa Jewell - I Found You

In the windswept British seaside town of Ridinghouse Bay, single mom Alice Lake finds a man sitting on
a beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, and no idea how he got there. Against her better judgment, she invites him inside.
Meanwhile, in a suburb of London, newlywed Lily Monrose grows anxious when her husband fails to return home from work one night. Soon, she receives even worse news: according to the police, the man she married never even existed.
Twenty-three years earlier, Gray and Kirsty Ross are teenagers on a summer holiday with their parents. The annual trip to Ridinghouse Bay is uneventful, until an enigmatic young man starts paying extra attention to Kirsty. Something about him makes Gray uncomfortable—and it’s not just because he’s a protective older brother.
Who is the man on the beach? Where is Lily’s missing husband? And what ever happened to the man who made such a lasting and disturbing impression on Gray?

Comment: I wasn't planning on reading this book but considered it to offer as a Christmas present and the blurb intrigued me enough to try it myself.

In this mystery we follow several characters as they go on their attempts to make sense of what is going on with someone close to them. For Alice is the strange man she sees through her window, sitting all day on the beach. That man has lost his memory and is just trying to think about what it means why he went to that place, why should it mean anything at all to him. Then, there's young Lily, a newlywed whose husband is missing but when she contacts the police, they tell her he can't exist for there are no records of him anywhere. How do these stories connect? Do they connect at all?

This is the first book I read by this author. The thriller genre isn't the one I gravitate to the most but I don't mind reading it once in a while. I saw this author had quite a fan base and her books had a good average in terms of ratings so I decided to bet on one to give as gift and the person I thought of doesn't have this one. I decided to try it too, just to see if this an author to look for.

The plot is classic thriller, where we follow different characters as they go through the motions of investigating/worrying about something. Alice feels emotionally vulnerable so she opens her house to the stranger in the beach who can't remember who he is. The stranger, named Frank by Alice's children, hopes to gain a clue on why he ended up in that specific beach. And Lily is looking for her husband, whose whereabouts no one can guess. These people will discover they have something in common but until then, we also have flashback chapters with a family, years ago, in the same small city where most of the action now takes place and how their holidays ended up so badly.

The past and present alternate chapters obviously offer enough mystery to keep turning the pages. Of course I was intrigued and wanted to know what the big secret that united those characters was, but to be really honest, I think the final reveal was very disappointing. I expected some kind of twist, or at least a much more plausible explanation for everything. When we finally bring the loose ends together and come up with the big picture, the logic and psychology of it was very weak. I kept thinking why don't those people just talk to the police? How could the family members we meet during the past chapters have behaved like that too? I can accept doubts in some decision making and it's true we always have the answers after things happen but I don't think the author convinced me with those characters and their personalities/motivations.

Alice came across as too needy. I can sympathize with her need to feel loved, to cherish her children but to also have someone to be intimate with. When she welcomes Frank to her house, I imagined much more compelling thriller scenarios but that wasn't the route taken.

Frank discovers in the end why he lost his memory (obviously after he gets it back) but the "medical" explanation isn't very convincing. Or the portrayal of it wasn't so. He isn't a true villain, but the whole mystery surrounding him was way better than the real reasons behind his behavior. 

Lily was very intriguing and pushy, I actually thought there was something more to her being odd and why she acted almost troublesome in some scenes than just a cultural difference. I think her "arc" wasn't used to the best of its potential.

In fact, I'd say this is my overall feeling as the story came to the end. There are hints, suggestions of how much anticipation could be gotten, how much suspense the whole plot could originate but it never quite reaches the maximum potential, as if the author didn't take the step extra to make the story feel even more uneasy to the reader. I think the plot could have gained by having more tension in everything. The final explanations actually felt weak in comparison to the amount of work it took to set up things as the author planned.

At a certain point, the mystery regarding identities is no longer a mystery, only in how that came to be. Then that element is revealed but not why. When that does happen, the psychology and logic behind some things doesn't seem to have enough strength and I wonder how the villain had the patience to wait so long to become a different person and why he even bothered when nothing in his past could be enough to condemn him. I also think some plot choices were chosen to go from one point to another but not all made sense. It's difficult to imagine real people acting like that but, well, at the same time the world is full of weirdos so what do I know?

All things considered, this wasn't a bad book to read. Rather weak in terms of plot/characterization but the overall sense of the writing style isn't bad. I'd read another book by the author, at least to compare.

Grade: 6/10