In a boarded up house at the end of a remote little street houses some interesting occupants and this story is told from their point of view. There is Ted (a recluse), Lauren (Ted's daughter), Dee (sister of a little girl who went missing years ago) and my favorite Olivia (a bible quoting cat). As the story progresses you think you know what is going on (but you don't) to an ending you've sure you've read before (but you haven't). To say more would spoil the whole thing. It is wonderfully dark, eerie, scary and really twisted and it is easy to see why Stephen King finds it remarkable. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

This book was spectacular. It's marketed as horror but it's more suspense with a creepy undertone. I wept throughout the last fifty or so pages. It was emotionally devastating. I can't stop thinking about the characters. I love Olivia.

Ward stacks mystery upon mystery, clue upon clue-- raising so many questions. Readers will need to stick with it and be patient until mysteries are resolved. When Olivia, Ted's cat, takes over the narrative she is very funny, as well as moving in her loyalty to Ted, and odd in her reasoning. Beautifully written and disturbing. Trigger warning: there is some violence towards birds and cats.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward is an interesting read that takes one on a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns in the process of solving the disappearance of a young girl many years earlier. The author does a great job of filling chapters with different point of views that keep the reader guessing until the very end. Several times I thought I had it figured out, only to have the story take yet another turn. As a mental health provider for decades, I can assure you that Ward has done a great job in researching for this book.
I had a slow start getting interested in the characters and storyline. In fact, at 10% of the way in, I seriously considered not finishing this book, a first for me! After reading the reviews before me, I decided to stick with it as many reviewers gave high praise. I’m glad I continued on as this book became much more interesting for me about halfway through. I was left wondering why the author introduced so many different characters, though and thought I might have missed their significance to the story when I finished the book.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle Arc. The Last House on Needless Street wasn't what I was expecting. When I saw it mentioned on the web and social media, it was billed as "horror." It is a horrific story, but not in the vein of the type of horror I'm used to reading. The story follows Ted, a 40-something adult, who lives in isolation with his "daughter" and "cat." I won't put any spoilers here. Ted suffers from long-standing mental illness, dating all the way back to his childhood. Its difficult to say what is real and what isn't. The book was engrossing and I wanted to find out what happened but I felt it spiraled a little at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It was interesting and twisty and weird, but maybe too much? I don't know. But I will say that I'm still digesting it 2 days after finishing it. It did take me a long time to get through because I found myself getting frustrated by how off kilter I felt the entire time I was reading. I just had no idea what was happening. Some of the prose gets a little wordy and excessive, but all in all the book came together in the end in a way that made sense. I still don't know who the bug man is or what he was supplying, so if someone could explain all that to me I'd really appreciate it.

While, at times, a genuinely uncomfortable reading experience, this redeems itself handily by not being what you think it is - at least not in total.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward is an unsettling novel, as you read it seems nothing quite makes sense. A cat who reads the Bible? (I loved her!) Ted, a slob of a man who is obsessed with his mommy, sees a psychiatrist to get medication and lives locked in a house with boarded up windows? His daughter, a young girl named Lauren who is a nasty, spiteful child? It all becomes clear at the end but it's a bit of a slog to get there, even though I found it difficult to put the book down. But I have that problem with most books of this genre...I have to read to the end or the novel will haunt me.

The twist is interesting, but I had mostly figured it out by the end. A strange novel, but engrossing. Thank you to the author, Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I had a really hard time getting into this one.

It's not very creepy in my opinion, and it was really hard to follow. I polled hundreds of people on Instagram if I should keep going and a large percentage were DNFs, but I still decided to stick it through because I was told the ending would be worth it.

I had actually figured out really early on what was happening, and was hoping I was wrong. When the "twist" was revealed it was pretty disappointing because it's a trope I'm not a fan of - as I think it's just been done too much -and I think its casts harmful assumptions, stereotypes and misrepresentations.

I will admit it, this book definitely got me. I had very little idea what exactly was going on as I read through the book, though I was creeped out and uneasy through much of it to the author's credit, and when everything started clicking together I had to take a moment and reflect on pretty much the entire book to get a handle on how I felt about it. A must for patient thriller fans!

I also just want to say that for me, the major stumbling block was the cat. Hearing the cat's point of view stopped me cold for a bit, it was just very jarring and while that is intentional I was thrown for such a loop that it was initially very difficult to get back into the story. After I got over that, I was pretty much along for the ride.

Reading the Afterword is highly recommended, because before I read it I was hovering around a 3.5 rating before I fully understood what kind of thinking went into writing the book and its characters, and after reading through that section my more lasting doubts I had about the whole thing were more or less definitively settled. .

I did not like this book at all. I hate unreliable narrators, and this book had the most unreliable narrator of all. How the author was able to take something so inherently fascinating and make it fairly boring is impressive. Didn't like this at all.

I'll warn you up front: The Last House on Needless Street is not an enjoyable book. And it doesn't try to be. Overall, it's an unsettling read. Anxiety and uneasiness spread across every page as Ward spins her claustrophobic tale through the haunted eyes and emotionally damaged minds of a succession of unreliable narrators. The tension mounts throughout because the reader never experiences the sensation of standing on solid narrative ground, the fiction equivalent of spotting something creepy out of the corner of your eye. And no matter how fast you look, whatever you thought you saw remains a disturbing mystery yet somehow manages to crawl under your skin. While The Last House on Needless Street reads like a haunted house novel, it's really a story of haunted lives.

BLOG REVIEW: http://www.passarella.com/blog/686/the-last-house-on-needless-street-catriona-ward-review/

TWITTER MENTION w/ REVIEW LINK: https://twitter.com/JohnPassarella/status/1416805086500696071

This Kindle book was sent to me by Netgalley for review. I was able to discern who the characters were early on…it is a difficult read, and I did not like reading the voice of the “cat”. Too outlandish for me. This book will be interesting to those who want to read about multiple personalities.

This book is creepy, breathtaking, chilling and heart breaking. Just when I was convinced I had everything figured out, I found out I didn't, not at all. This book will stay with you long after you've finished.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward is a superb book with an engrossing plot and well drawn characters. Well worth the read!

Unusual story but not bad. I didn't think I could even get into it. I pushed myself and it turned out not bad. Some characters I wasn't crazy about. I did expect more from all the 'stellar' reviews though.

An interesting and suspenseful read that would be ruined by any further explanation on the plot.

I found it to be more mystery than thriller or horror, but it was still entertaining.

Olivia was my absolute favorite part and my reason to continue.

Thank you Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for a review copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

At around 50% through this book I almost DNF'D it. I was so freaking close to just closing the book, and walking away. In the end I decided to give it another chapter or two and I ended up finishing the rest of it in one sitting.

As you can guess from my earlier contemplation of continuing to read or not, there was clearly something that just wasn't working for me. At first I was into the story, then I became very bored. I was especially bored during the chapters from the cat's point of view. I really dislike animal narrators and I couldn't see this book going anywhere interesting. As far as I was concerned the book was boring, predictable and I had a lot of other things I could read rather than waste my time.

But then something happened.. and I won't say what but it convinced me to keep going. And then one thing lead to another and next thing I knew I had consumed the entire book and was wrong about everything.

This was a really good book. I really enjoyed it. I loved being wrong the most because this was way better than I thought it was going to be.

I started reading this book, but didn't think I'd have the time to read it physically, so I got the audiobook. Great book. Had no idea where it was going.

Wow. I went into reading this for a good horror novel that was recommended by Stephen King and I came away with so much more.

The Last House on Needless Street is a tightly wound story about a lonely man named Ted, his Bible reading cat, his disabled daughter, and the secrets they all keep. It’s also about a missing girl and her sister who is determined to find her.

Simultaneously terrifying and heartwarming, Catriona Ward intricately weaves a unique, fast paced story that keeps the reader guessing until the very end. A must read for fans of horror and murder mysteries.

4.5 stars

Huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.