The Night House is difficult to describe without giving it away but it is a three part story that revolves around an orphaned boy named Richard who is new to this small town and terrible/paranormal things start happening to other students when they are alone with him. When he tells adults what happened they think he is crazy and send him to a mental institution where the person he believes really committed these atrocities escaped from. Now he must escape in order to save his friends.

This is definitely a Nordic Noir with twist upon twist. If you are interested in supernatural and/or what our memory does this one might be interesting.

Unfortunately, this was not for me and I couldn't finish it. The tone felt very strange from the beginning and I found the story hard to get into. While I'm sure the bizarre plot and unreliable narrator pay off for some readers, it just wasn't compelling enough for me to keep going. This was a DNF for me. I really struggled to connect with it and it just wasn't what I was looking for. I've heard the book changes dramatically, but I wasn't engaged enough to stick around for the twist. Life's too short to finish a book you're not clicking with. This is the second Jo Nesbo DNF for me. I don't understand how this author is popular.

It is very difficult to rate this book. The coming of age aspects of this book are incredibly well done. The characters are well developed and the first part of the novel I really enjoyed. But the second and third parts of the novel are so very different that I felt like I was reading a different book. I would have loved to to have seen the novel wrap up the story in the same manner as it started.

The Night House by Jo Nesbø is an eerie, atmospheric novel that blends psychological horror with elements of dark fantasy. The premise is intriguing—a young boy named Richard is sent to live with relatives after a tragedy, only to encounter strange, possibly supernatural events in a remote town. Nesbø builds suspense skillfully, and the first half of the book grips you with its creepy tone and unanswered questions.

However, the novel takes some ambitious narrative turns that may not work for everyone. The shift in tone and genre midway through feels jarring, and while the twist is inventive, it undermines some of the emotional stakes built earlier. The pacing also falters in parts, and the characters, especially the adults, can feel underdeveloped or overly archetypal.

Overall, The Night House is a bold, unsettling read that will appeal to fans of horror-tinged psychological thrillers, but its structural risks and uneven execution may leave some readers wanting more. It’s an interesting experiment from Nesbø—just not his strongest.

The first half of this story was so solid. A fairly average, fairly cheesy horror about a kid whose peers are dying in mysterious ways, it had just enough of that Goosebumps, 80s vibe and was fast paced enough that I flipped through the pages pretty quickly, so I was having a good time.
The story then flipped on us, bringing us suddenly into a different situation, and something immediately felt off. This then descended into chaos, while I was still scrambling to work out what was happening in the first place, before then switching up on us again.
This third switch just annoyed me. It was such a basic choice that it could barely be considered a plot twist, and has already been done in a very famous movie, much better. I left feeling that the author had absolutely no idea how he wanted to finish this story, and just threw in the towel.

After his parents' death, teenager Richard Elauved is now living with his aunt and uncle. He's finding it hard to fit in and now one of his classmates has gone missing. Everyone seems to think Richard had something to do with his disappearance, after all what does Richard mean that Tom was sucked in by a telephone at a telephone booth?

Unfortunately the next events become even more bizarre. Unfortunately this book was not for me.

Title: The Night House
Author: Jo Nesbø ( Neil Smith-Translator)
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Knopf
Format: E-Pub ARC
Release Date: Oct. 3, 2023
General Genre: Horror
Sub/Genre- Themes: Grief, childhood trauma
What You Need To Know: 14 year old Richard Elauved is sent to live with his Aunt & Uncle after his parents die in a tragic house fire. Having a hard time making friends and fitting in he is quickly blamed when a classmate named Tom goes missing. He is quickly blamed & quick to tell everyone what really happened. When the police don’t believe him and another classmate goes missing the truth is dark and disturbing. Then again Richard may not be the most reliable story teller….
My Reading Experience: This book is broken up into three different parts, the first and 3rd parts were good and I was not crazy about the second part. It was spooky and I loved parts. But others felt very chaotic and confusing.
Final Recommendation: It was a very unique and interesting take on Richard’s “story” that he tells his psychiatrist. Parts were very well written and spooky but others left me feeling confused and not interested. Overall the entire story kind of fell flat for me and it was personally not my favorite. But please don’t let that dissuade you from reading it! It was very entertaining and original.

I went into The Night House expecting a creepy, twisty horror story—but honestly, it just didn’t work for me. The premise started out intriguing, but things quickly got bizarre in a way that felt more confusing than compelling. One of the early scenes involves a kid getting sucked into a telephone, and from there, it just kept getting weirder without much payoff.

The book is split into three parts, and each shift made the story feel more disjointed. Just when I started to get a handle on what was happening, the tone or direction would change completely. I didn’t feel connected to the characters, and the main character, Richard, was hard to root for. Some of the things he said or thought were honestly uncomfortable to read.

The writing style also didn’t click with me—it felt clunky and uneven, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a YA horror, a psychological thriller, or something more literary.

I didn’t finish this one and don’t feel the need to go back to it. I think some readers might enjoy how strange and experimental it is, but it just wasn’t my kind of book.

Jo Nesbø’s The Night House is a gripping, atmospheric thriller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. With his signature blend of dark suspense and complex characters, Nesbø masterfully weaves a tale of loss, secrets, and eerie mysteries. The story pulls you into a shadowy world where nothing is as it seems, and the twists will leave you breathless. Fans of psychological thrillers and tense, unpredictable narratives won’t be able to put this one down.

Partially read, mostly listened to the audiobook on this one and it was pretty good! The pacing was good and I was rooting for the main character to have a happy ending which I suppose he ends up with 🤣 this is my first Nesbo book and I’m interested to read more from him!

I really didn't like the mental health rep in this. It's not only inaccurate, but kind of offensive. This also leans heavily on a particular trope and uses language that's very dated - neither of which aged well. On a positive note, there were some scenes that were written very well.

This one didn't do it for me like her other books, though it wasn't bad at all. It just didn't hit like her previous titles. I think it was trying to accomplish too much or maybe it was just wasn't my thing this time.

I've been familiar with the name "Jo Nesbo" for years, and knew he was a popular Scandinavian mystery writer famous for his Harry Hole series. But I'd yet to bite the bullet and pick that series up (mostly because I heard the "hero" was pretty unlikable/could be quite racist). But then I heard about this, Nesbo's first foray into horror, and thought the premise was interesting, so I put in my request.

Ultimately, The Night House -- not to be confused with the 2020 horror/thriller starring Rebecca Hall -- didn't impress me. Nesbo's style of writing/characters just fell flat for me (tho perhaps that was more the translator's fault, to be fair). Doubt I'll be picking up anything else by Nesbo going forward.

Great book! It had all the fears of growing up. Make a choice. Turn the page or close the book. Enter the darkness if you wish!

This is a quick read - I read it in two sittings. Nesbo added in some fun twists along the way, dropping bits of information throughout the novel to lead the reader to these gasp moments. I thought I knew where the book was going but then I was wrong - which I love! It didn't wow me as much as I hoped it would though.

Overall,I enjoyed this book but have liked some of his previous books better than this one. I was hoping for some scares and major creep factor - but didn't get that with this one. This book was broken up into sections and the first section was definitely my favorite. Overall, I would recommend it but I would start with some of his other novels first!

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review.

This story was a bit of a mind-fuck overall, and the main character is set up early on as a bit of an unreliable narrator, which just contributes to the overall mind-fuck. When you don't even know what to believe because it could all be lies, it just messes with you. And that's what this book does for the entirety of the story.

I was thrown off by the class reunion part of the story as well. It felt like it kind of came out of nowhere to me, and it wasn't clear what was going on for parts of it, and I just really struggled to mentally connect it to the boy disappearing into a phone years before.

Overall I give The Night House 3.2736 out of 5 stars. I'll probably give the author another shot, but I wasn't blown away by this book.

I rather enjoyed this book, though I know it's not the author's "usual" such as the Harry Hole series. The three parts did seem a bit disconnected to me rather than being one cohesive book, but it still all tied together in a way that kept me intrigued from start to finish, and I would be interested in reading more stories like this from the author.

4 stars

The Night House ~ Jo Nesbo
In this twisted multi layered spin on the classic horror story, this book will blow your mind. After fourteen year old Richard's parents perish in a house fire, he is sent to live in a remote town with his aunt and uncle. Once there strange things start to happen. One classmate is sucked into the receiver of a telephone while another is turned into a bug. While stories of black magic and an abandoned house terrify Richard and his friend Karen. The first part of the book will have your nodding to it's YA horror roots. Part two will give you pause, as the story becomes more twisted. Part three... that's when your jaw hits the ground. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book in the end, albeit, part two was definitely pushing the horror boundaries.

This was honestly a real mess. Sometimes it feels like something like The House with a Clock in it's Walls with a dash of something like Twin Peaks or an Edward Goreyesque gothic thrown into it for surrealism and oddment and then it goes much more serious, then delves into gross generalization about mental illness, then out of it, and then back in, and then out long enough to tie things up. I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that it felt like I was asked to read three different books, one of which was a half written dark fantasy YA novel, and the other two of which were more like long tangents of something like a short story's length- none of them wholly satisfying or complete with their narratives. Alas, I think that was the point with our protagonist's mental state and I really didn't appreciate that element at all. If the goal was to portray Schizophrenia in anything like a sympathetic way this was absolutely not it.

Narratively the writing itself isn't terrible, however there are a lot of sections that leave out huge chunks of detail and development that really could have made this a decent retro style YA novel or adult mystery novel- no, leaving it "dreamlike" doesn't make it fit the schizophrenia narrative he chose to use here- instead its often frustrating even when you're willingly suspending belief. As many others have pointed out the fatphobic slurs are definitely rough and our main always seems to find a way to become too unlikable just when you start to accept he's complex and most of the other characters never build up enough information to become real people we want to know more about adding more to the confusion and to Richard's ickiness.

For well done books that are made up of books within books go read Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez who pulls it off much more smoothly and with better characters who clearly represent people who have endured trauma and generational trauma over time. I also enjoyed Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward which used mental illness in its narrative but didn't abuse it.

As far as schizophrenia and its horrendous representation in media I truly wish authors and screenwriters would take a course on the condition itself and the overall subject of trauma and trauma recovery as a whole and then do some real soul searching before they toss it into a book as an "interesting spin". PTSD and Schizophrenia can co-occur and share similar traits but they are not so closely tied that those with PTSD should be assumed to have schizophrenia anymore than they should be assumed to have Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder), Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Psychopathy, or Sociopathy on the level depicted in The Night House. As a person with loved ones who experience DID, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and BPD and a person living with Complex PTSD I was deeply disappointed with the way schizophrenia was handled here.

Okay, I know this book has a lot of mixed reviews but I loved it. There were a couple of twists and it was like whiplash but the good kind. This is a very different type of book from Nesbo and don't go into it expecting his crime series.

If you like layers within a story, and don't mind sporadic and 180 degree changes, then you will enjoy this story. That's all I can say without spoiling it.