This book scared me. In the middle of the day, full sunlight, it left me feeling uneasy. It opened with a unique style of writing that piqued my interest and the storyline hooked me right away. After that it was just a battle to see what how many pages I could sneak in between my real-life obligations.

I LOVED it. So new, so different, such a refreshing take on a haunting. And so simple. It was a delight from start to finish and I am already contemplating a re-read.

Five stars. Loved every page.

Thanks Josh Malerman for another great read. You are fast becoming one of the authors that I will read anything that they write. And thank you SO much to NetGalley and Del Ray for the advanced readers copy. The publication date of the is book is set for June 25, 2024. NetGalley always asks if I would recommend or buy this book for someone. Yes, absolutely. I would give this book to every horror fan that I know, and even some non-horror readers too!

Josh Malerman's newest novel, Incidents Around the House, is a masterpiece of horror with heart. Layers and layers of meaning and themes of family, trauma, and growing up that's reminiscent of Coraline and The Shining and Room.

The odd narrative style from young Bela's perspective makes the story all the more engaging, quick to read, and TERRIFYING. It also really gets the message across: our children may have a limited understanding of what is happening around them, but that doesn't mean they aren't internalizing it all.

I can't recommend this enough, and huge thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for an e-arc to read and review!

Incidents Around the House publishes June 25, 2024

Don’t read in your room with the lights off! You’ve been warned!
Incidents around the House is probably one of the few books that has creeped me out to the point that I had to stop reading and switch to another book so I could sleep afterwards. I started reading it in my room at night!
The story is told by the POV of an 8 year old girl named Bela. She lives with her Mommy and Daddo but there is also something sinister in the house, referred to as “other mommy” that has attached itself to Bela and haunts her.
As the story develops Bela and her family struggle with trying to find ways to get rid of Other Mommy. A few family secrets are revealed throughout their ordeal and your heart just breaks for poor Bela with everything she goes through!
What I loved about this book is that it managed to scary me many times! I loved the unique idea of the story being told by the child. This would be a great book to adapt into a film as it checks all the creepy, jumps scare boxes for me!
Thank Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine. All opinions are my own.

Thank you netgally and to the publisher for this arc copy. I was super excited to get this arc.. I started reading it and I was into the book but about halfway through I was thinking nothing was really happening in the book this one was just not it for me I was bummed out. There were some creepy parts in this book and I think those were done very well I wish there were more of those in the book and I just felt like the book was going nowhere and I was confused throughout the whole thing maybe it’s something I would have to reread but I honestly don’t think I could get through it again .

This was super good! It was a fast, easy read, and Other Mommy was legitimately scary. I read and watch horror all the time and am very desensitized, but some of her scenes made me feel uneasy in my room at night while I was reading. Not an easy feat. It dragged in a few parts, and the end will probably be a little divisive, but I really liked it. I would love to see this turned into a movie. It's kind of a mix of something like The Babadook and It Follows, but very Blumhousey, in a good way. Like popcorn horror.

The premise of this story was very eye catching. Combined with the skills of the author, this book was a masterpiece!

I really enjoyed Incidents Around the House.

Loved how it was told from, Bela, a little girls, point of view. She’s so innocent and dealing with such horrible things. The dissolution of her family, secrets and a terrifying monster living in her closet.

Lots super unsettling horror. The descriptions of “Other Mommy” and her face. I’ll have some nightmares.

For me, this is really a story about family and home. What those two things mean and how they can come to bring true horror into people’s lives.

Not quite sure about the ending. Will have to sit with it for a while.

This book is absolutely chilling. It is so scary but also so deep. This book is written from the perspective of a child, which I found to add to the story. I felt completely immersed in this story as I read it. This book touches on family dysfunction, the impact of the mistakes parents make on their children, and how heavily a secret can weigh on a person. The ending absolutely gutted me. This book is so much more than it appears and I enjoyed every minute of it.

This is a great book for fans of Mama and The Babadook!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this advance copy!

This is my first book by Josh Malerman that I have read and I will have no problem picking up another.
Incidents Around the House is definitely a book to read if you want to stay up late at night wondering if those sounds you heard are just your cats and if you should close your closet door so you don't wake up to bright eyes staring back at you.

Mommy, Daddo, and Bela are not alone in their home. Other Mommy visits Bela at night. What first starts off as a "friendship" between the two, quickly turns into a scary situation as Bela keeps saying "No" when Other Mommy asks “Can I go inside your heart?” Bela soon learns that Other Mommy is not a friend and will hurt Bela's family if she does not get her way. The more Bela resists, the stronger Other Mommy gets and eventually leaves Bela's room and drags Grandma Ruth and family friends into her situation. Bela realizes that her family is not as strong as she thought and that they will just keep suffering until she does what Other Mommy wants or finds another way to stop her.

I must admit, this is my first book with no quotation marks. I understand it is a newer trend but it is hard for me to get behind. I found myself having to reread parts to try to figure out who said what and it made the book very "stop and go" instead of flowy. I also LOVED the plot and felt like the story was different and had so much potential but the end was very abrupt and left room for more questions than answers.

𝕴𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖉𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖘 𝕬𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕳𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖊
𝔟𝔶: 𝔍𝔬𝔰𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔯𝔪𝔞𝔫

𝓐𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓽: A chilling horror novel about a haunting, told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity. To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also “Other Mommy”, who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?” 

𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓮𝓻: Bela. She’s so young and she’s going through so much trauma at the moment. I just want to hug her.

𝓦𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓘 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮𝓭: The creepy aspects I could totally visualize which made this a fun read for me. This book has some deep stuff going on, especially from the child’s point of view. The term “skeletons in the closet” or “we all have demons” really comes into play.

𝓦𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓘 𝓭𝓲𝓼𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮𝓭: There were some parts, just like when watching a “scary movie” where you are asking yourself “wtf are you people doing?”, I just want there to be smart moves made, that doesn’t mean it has to be a happy ending, I just want the characters to be somewhat smart in their decision making.

To sum up, I liked the book, it was an easy read and I loved that it was from the POV of a child. It honestly left me a little sad, as an emotional reader I’m feeling a slight hangover from this one. As always, read the triggers before diving in.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group, NetGalley and Josh Malerman for this ARC.

Incidents Around The House drops June 25th

Posting reviews to NetGalley, Instagram, Amazon, GoodReads and StoryGraph

This was my first Malerman novel. I saw it getting hype on Bookstagram and was excited when I got approved for the arc. The book was definitely creepy and was a fresh take on the haunted/possessed kid trope. I did not find the book to be scary, but I read a lot of horror so maybe I'm desensitized. I enjoyed the complex family dynamic. I would consider the pacing one notch under fast. I felt some parts were repetitive. Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of the authors work.

I love the concept, but this was incredibly difficult to read. I understand why it was written in the style that it was, but I wasn't a fan. There were quite a few unnecessary scenes, and it could've been a short story and much more enjoyable. I'd recommend to those who like weird spooky tales about boogeymen written in a child's perspective.

Disturbing, creepy, and heartbreaking. I'm normally not phased by horror novels, especially those in the paranormal genre, but this book was legitimately scary. The story being told through the eyes of 8-year old Bela was unique. I wasn't really satisfied with the ending but overall I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to @netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I’ve become somewhat of a Josh Malerman fanatic ever since getting an ARC of Goblin (which yes I read well before I ever picked up Bird Box). I was so incredibly thankful to get my hands on this one early and couldn’t stop myself from devouring it. Incidents Around the House is a quick read in part to the narrative style, written from the point of view of a young child. I loved the texture and nuance it gave the story, presenting it in a drastically different light than the same plot could have been presented. The themes of home and innocence and secrets and “room” were beautiful. And I’m loving Malerman’s tying together all of his worlds in his various books (Goblin makes a very obvious appearance here but no you do not need to have read it to understand). I loved this one and I’m excited to pressure all of my friends into reading it as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey books for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. This is my first Malerman novel and I am hooked. I definitely want to go back to his older novels and short story collection to consume more of his writing. Since this book is narrated from the perspective of an eight year old girl, it did take me a minute to adjust to the way the story was being told. However, after a few short chapters, I was sucked into the story and into Bela’s brain. She always felt like a little girl which is an extremely hard thing to do and I give Malerman a lot of props for executing this flawlessly. The plot isn’t very complex but it didn’t need to be to keep me engaged in the story. This is a brilliant example of how simple a story can be and still invoke a terrifying feeling in the reader. If I read this in the dark I would’ve been terrified. The ending may disappoint some people, but I loved how it ended and I love that I am going to be thinking about this story in the coming weeks and months. If you are looking for a fast paced, spooky story, pick this one up!

Incidents Around the House is a horror novel about an eight-year-old girl named Bela who lives with her mother, father, and a malevolent spirit she calls Other Mommy who lives in her closet. Bela used to believe that Other Mommy was her friend, but lately Other Mommy has started to put more pressure on Bela to let her “into her heart”. Bela has started to think that Other Mommy might hurt Bela or her parents if Bela does not agree, but she is frightened of what it might mean to let Other Mommy into her heart, and what will happen to Bela if she does.

Despite the subject material being profoundly dark and disturbing, the entire story is told about and from the perspective of an eight-year-old girl. This was a fantastic choice by the author – Bela’s perspective and innocence contrasted with the violence and the parents’ own sense of horror ultimately helped raise the stakes. It’s one thing to know that a little girl is in danger, but by forcing the reader to see through her eyes, the reader can feel the danger up close, and better understand why Bela heself is conflicted on what to do. The last time I read a book with such a perfect sense of perspective was when I read Room. There are definitely echoes of that work in this one – Bela’s parents often come to sit with her while they think that she is sleeping, and monologue about their own struggles. Bela doesn’t always understand what they’re saying to her, but the reader does, and unlike Bela, the reader is able to understand how badly Bela’s family is beginning to break apart.

These days, I have a really hard time binging a book if I’m not listening to it on audiobook. The pacing on this one was so well done, though, that I read the entire thing in about 48 hours. I definitely think that the perspective played a part in how invested I was, but the book’s stellar pace had a lot to do with this as well. This is undoubtedly a quick-moving book, with very few moments of quiet, and even those quiet moments are often interrupted by Other Mommy’s plotting. It was almost impossible to put this book down – there was always something new about to threaten Bela and her parents, and every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. In some books, this might be overwhelming and hard to follow. The plot in this one though is succinct enough that I was able to follow it all the way through, and I think it worked well here.

In all, I’ll give Incidents Around the House a 9 out of 10. This is a compelling, fast-paced horror, and I think any reader who likes a good story about a haunting will enjoy it.

A solid horror story featuring an evil entity that is referred to as "other mommy". It wants to use the family's daughter for reincarnation. The author includes a twist that allows the entity to travel to wherever the child goes. Seriously creepy.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC of Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman.

This story is told almost entirely from the first person/present tense perspective of a young child named Bela. Bela's limited perspective feeds us some information in smaller glimpses, for example, some adult problems her parents are having. Bela just wants for them to be happy, but she picks up on little details she isn't supposed to see and can recognize things seem different from before. Initially, I thought the writing style would hurt the reading experience, but it works in the story's favor. In my opinion, the creep factor works extremely well due to the limited perspective we're given. Bela's innocence makes the reader responsible for filling in certain gaps, and I personally feel like it elevated the reading experience, although it might not work for some. Regardless of how you feel, it's certainly unique. 

Some first impressions I took away from the opening chapters was that it felt like Coraline meets The Babadook (especially with the source of the haunting coming from something called "Other Mother" the Coraline comparisons are almost inevitable). But the further into the story we go, this book becomes much more than the creepy happenings Bela and her family are experiencing. 

One of the things that I feel will stick with me the most, more so than any of the horror or creepy vibes, is the way the book dives into coming of age and the different challenges we might face as we mature. There is a secondary thread related to family drama which felt very real. Those elements were well done, and made sense in how it was weaved into the story.

Incidents Around the House by Malerman

This was a tough one, not to read but to digest and review. Despite the elusive title, the word “Incidents” defined as events or occurrences, seems in retrospect to be part and parcel of this slippery read. Scary story or cautionary tale – hauntings, philosophy, secrets of the universe revealed – all presented here in flawless Malerman style. Incidents Around the House relates a young girl’s coming of age and struggling with the demons of growing up and growing old – seeing the truth behind and beyond the faces visible to us at different stages of life. Gaining knowledge, losing innocence, living, dying, being born again. Great scenes of suspense such as the doglike creature creeping up the beach, interspersed with poetic wise old words to live by, Other Mommy, be she in the closet or in the mirror has much to say. As the wise old grandmother figure instructs, it’s all a matter of who and what you let into your life – your house and heart that will ultimately determine your story.

This haunted house/possession hybrid, told from the viewpoint of a young girl named Bela, may just possibly be the scariest horror novel so far this millennium … and I say this as a fan of horror fiction since 1976.

Bela lives in a two story home with her parents (Mommy and Daddo, as she refers to him), and has a secret friend living in her closet who she calls “Other Mommy.” What begins as a friendly relationship eventually becomes sinister to the point her family goes on the run, but realize they need to face this thing head on in the hopes of ever having a normal life again.

Filled with great takes on every childhood fear and worry, Malerman delivers images that won’t be leaving your psyche anytime soon, and one scene dealing with an amateur paranormal investigator delivers a wicked twist that’ll have you punching a hole in the nearest wall.

There are secrets, surprises, and scares at nearly every turn, and the overall creepiness factor here has just upped the genre big time.

This is the epitome of an instant classic.