I had high hopes for The No-End House - the cover is eerie, the premise promises a terrifying haunted house, so I went in expecting chills. What I got instead felt like a strange mash-up of a budget Saw movie and a warped Alice in Wonderland escape room…and not in a good way.

The concept had potential, but the execution was all over the place. Rather than a horrifying experience, the plot devolves into confusing and repetitive traps that were more frustrating than frightening. It lacked tension, atmosphere, and the haunted vibe the blurb teased.

By the hallway point, I was desperate to DNF - but I pushed through hoping it would redeem itself. It didn’t. Ultimately, this book just felt like a missed opportunity and I left it feeling let down and annoyed.

I’m sorry, but I just hated Joe & Helen so much that I couldn’t enjoy the story. And what a bizarre story it was.

Thank you anyways to the author, NetGalley, and Kensington Publishing for a copy!

The No-End House is a story that seems to have a confused identity, ambitious in its ideas but unable to rise to its own challenge. The premise of this story had potential to be something truly great, but the end result is a mixed bag of not-quite-horror, not-quite-adventure, not-quite-anything that left me underwhelmed and annoyed. Yet, something about this book also intrigued me, leaving me ultimately confused by it.

The two main characters of the story, Joe and Helen, were very charming, and their dynamic was the best part of this book for me. They had interesting backstories that became relevant once they entered the No-End House, they had good chemistry, and they were a duo that I was rooting for through each and every stage of this story - up until the final stretch, which was just underwhelming more than anything. All other characters were simply set dressing to move the plot along, which isn’t a bad thing, it simply made me even more invested in what could possibly happen to Joe and Helen.

The thing that I keep coming back to with this book is its strangeness - I’m not certain whether it's a good or bad thing, but really it's the elephant in the room. For about the first half of the book, I was incredibly engaged because it was mysterious and intriguing and I was eager to learn more as the plot developed. But about halfway through, the narrative lost me, becoming something else and quickly diminishing my enjoyment of the story.

I’m going to repeat myself a lot here, but again this was great for the first half and just fell off in the second half. When Joe and Helen arrived at the No-End House and began the challenge, I loved the atmosphere - it was reminiscent of old school horror ala Hellraiser, which created a good sense of tension. But then with the evolution of the setting came a diminishing of atmosphere, and the plot strayed away from being horror to become something of an action-adventure that just wasn’t working for me.

This plot was so odd, I’m not quite sure what Bates was hoping to achieve. There was such a wealth of potential for this story, and I really appreciate the concept for the No-End House (it, more or less, being a manifestation of people’s fears and insecurities), but that works much better in theory rather than practice. As this went on I became less interested in the actual story and more interested in what the hell Bates was going to do next. He was a little too ambitious in his narrative pursuits, because this story lost its way. I’ll also note that the ending was incredibly predictable, but the execution of it really just annoyed me.

Bates has a way of writing that kept me turning the page even as the story was losing me. It's nothing mindblowingly impressive, but the pacing worked well enough to keep me mildly invested even till the end. The style and structure of this story is really nothing to write home about, but it’s not bad either. Simply whelming.

This was a great premise but I ultimately wasn’t very impressed by its execution. Cheesy and a bit too far fetched for my enjoyment. The house was cool! The characters were bland.

Well this book veered off the road into a black hole of absolute wtf. And I am here for it. Just now I was skimming thru reviews of this book and it is *wild* how opinions can vary. Many people cite a certain point where things went south for them, and, on the contrary, this is where I dug my heels in.

The No End House follows Joe. Following a horrific accident that resulted in the death of his wife a few years ago, Joe pulls a slower paced Forrest Gump and takes off walking around the world. In Barcelona he meets an orange haired self proclaimed geek, Helen, and they quickly develop a friendship. Joe overhears some tourists talking about a haunted house/escape room and mentions it to Helen. They end up deciding to give it a go and quickly realize they’re in much deeper than the cheesy experience they’d anticipated.

I was kind of expecting a dark Saw vibe and that’s there but this goes much harder in a weird way. I’ll always appreciate a mind fuck over a slasher, but everyone is different. The ending threw me, hard. It’s an ambiguous ending which isn’t for everyone, but if you vibe with mind bending horror that leave you wondering what just happened, this is the one. I do feel as though the last 10% felt a bit rushed but I still thought it ended on a high note. Recommend to my fellow horror weirdos.

What a great concept! Loved the fast pace, the characters, the plot was so smart. It does feel though that the whole thing was a hallucination and none of it really happened. But, it was a crazy concept.

thank you, Netgallery for the opportunity to read No-End House
this book is betrayed by it blurb and, as such, was impacted in my rating which was a 2.5 but improved by me not feeling it had a fair chance. IN NO WAY IS THIS ANYTHING LIKE HOSTEL OR SAW! I went into this book thinking it was going to be a dark slasher but this is more a supernatural story that is in need of better characters

If you liked Hostel, Hostel II, SAW and it's many torture porn sequels, you might like this. IF.

What makes those movies - at least the first time I saw them - fun, is the visuals. With this book, despite all the details, it just didn't have that same impact. Yes, people are selling their souls for the opportunity to win money that they don't needs, but....really?

I think shock value and shock attempts are two different things and this one failed to do either.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was a total fever dream. I was hooked from the start and felt like I was falling down this weird, dark rabbit hole right alongside Joe and Helen.

The story is super fast-paced and seriously messes with your sense of time and space. It gets really dark in places, but that just made it more interesting. Definitely not your average horror, it’s got a psychological edge that sticks with you.

The ending felt a bit rushed and left me with a few questions, but overall, this book is going to stick with me for a while. If you’re into strange, twisty psychological horror, this one’s totally worth the ride.

I loved this book. It was very imaginative and I enjoyed reading about the obstacles the characters faced in the different rooms. The main characters had a weird chemistry but overall I enjoyed the book. I will have to purchase the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Jeremy Bates for letting me read this copy early!

With the mention of the Saw movies and authors King, Katsu, and Golden in the description, not to mention the idea of a kind of escape room/nightmare house, I was excited to dig into this novel. It turned out to be... not what I'd expected.

Joe's story certainly pulls at the heartstrings. His wife was killed in a horrific accident, then Joe leaves his job (he's not lacking for money) to walk around the world and deal with his grief. Helen works for UNICEF, and the two of them meet in Barcelona - a fantastic setting. The premise is intriguing and exciting, but I feel like the description is misleading. While some of the challenges were creepy (and also disgusting at times), the story went off the rails for me when the dinosaurs showed up.

This novel didn't work for me, but it wouldn't prevent me from reading other books by this author.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: June 24, 2025
Canadian horror author Jeremy Bates has delivered a pulse-pounding, fantastically horrifying summer thriller with his new standalone novel, “The No-End House”.
After his wife dies in a horrible accident, Joe Hadfield sets out to accomplish a lifelong goal- to walk across the world. When he makes it to Barcelona, he meets a woman by the name of Helen, who encourages him to try the infamous “No-End House” challenge. For the challenge, Joe and Helen must make their way through nine rooms in an historic and infamous mansion in the Gothic Quarter and, if they succeed, they will win five thousand dollars each but, if they lose, they risk losing their lives- and their souls.
“No-End House” was a non-stop thrill ride from the very first page. Reminiscent of Pennywise in Stephen King’s “It”, the “No-End House” creates an atmosphere where you are plagued by your deepest fears and confronting them head-on is the only way to come out alive- maybe. Every single room was more terrifying than the previous and it had me on the edge of my seat. Bates forces us to examine our broken inner child, and the fears that come with it.
Joe’s wife dying so tragically endeared me to him right away and his quest to walk across the world (where possible, of course) was engaging and intriguing. When he meets Helen, who is strange yet interesting in her own right, they instantly pair up to take on the No-End House together. Bates ensures that, just like Joe, readers are left deciding for themselves if Helen can be trusted, although she is likable enough that I wanted her and Joe to successfully survive the house and its horrors.
Can we talk about that ending, though? After Bates takes us on a horrific journey through nine rooms of terror, he hits readers with an unexpected, twisty-as-hell, surprising ending that literally had my jaw hitting the floor.
Bates has evaded my attention up to this point, though he has several novels under his belt, all in the horror genre but, if his other novels are anything like the No-End House, I will definitely be adding all of them to my list. “The No-End House” is sharp, scary and utterly unique and Bates has earned every one of my five, shining stars!

The no end house by Jeremy Bates, Joe Hatfield is walking around the world and is now in Barcelona halfway through his trip when he meets orange haired Helen. despite her clearly being interested in spending the night with him he goes back to his hostel he recently lost his wife and isn’t ready and can’t imagine being in a relationship with anyone else it’s that night when he’s woken up by two Australians talking about a haunted house in a $5000 payoff for getting through the whole thing without quitting something he mentions to Helen the next morning when he runs into her again. she is all in to doing it but Joe hesitates although it isn’t long before he finds himself in the parlor of Marquis Isabella. she’s explaining everything about The No Endd House and despite the contract stating if they lose they forfeit their souls with a nudge nudge and wink wink they both agree. they both believe this house exist for some type of entertainment whether it be YouTube Spanish television or whatever so they don’t take it seriously until it’s way too late. What starts out as a fun yet scary thing to do turns into a real life and death nightmare. Let me just say I have read many reviews about this book and a pet peeve of mine is when people use logic to explain their rating on a book that’s not steeped in reality and I found lots of people did this despite the fact this was an OMG mic drop ending And an awesome awesome read. Not to mention all the great pop culture references there were many times I didn’t know how they would get out of situations they were in and I really thought this was a smartly done very intelligently told horror story. I also want to say Helen as a partner in this type of situation at first it seems she was going to drag Joe down but soon he was lucky she was there although everything is explained in the end I just really enjoyed this book.#NetGalley,#KensingtonBooks, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview, #JeremyBates, #TheNoEndHouse,

The No‑End House plunges readers into a phantasmagoric descent, equal parts magical realism, psychological horror, and surreal nightmare. With echoes of Stephen King’s unsettling atmosphere, this haunted‑house odyssey unfolds across nine increasingly grotesque “escape rooms” nestled in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter.
Bates orchestrates a dreamlike disorientation: each room collapses the boundary between memory, phobia, and supernatural menace. We, alongside Joe, are submerged into an active, fracturing world where fears materialize and twist. The pacing simulates a fever dream, slowly entrancing at first, then catapulting into hallucinatory terror.
This deliberate “weirdness” is central to the magical‑realist aesthetic: confusion, distortion, emotional rupture. It revives that uncanny sense of displacement, the very quality magical realism thrives on, melding the everyday with the impossible. Where some may argue the genre demands a gentler surrealism, here the brutal intrusion of the supernatural functions as a reckoning: Joe can no longer deny what he has stepped into.
Yet the novel is not without missteps. While the thematic trajectory and emotional tension are compelling, certain sequences, such as the extended dinosaur phobia room, feel incongruous, even indulgent.
Nevertheless, Bates’s vision remains largely effective. He channels visceral horror, trauma, and fear into a structure that feels like a livewired labyrinth, haunting in its design, personal in its cost. The No‑End House itself becomes a character: a shapeshifting altar to shame, grief, and terror. Fans of immersive horror, think Hostel crossed with King-style supernatural dread—will likely find this a darkly satisfying gauntlet
The No‑End House is an audacious hybrid, a haunting, hyper‑real haunted‑house novel that stumbles only when Bates indulges excess. Its surreal, phobic rooms summon real unease, and the emotional core anchors the supernatural with surprising depth. Though readers seeking literary magical realism may bristle at its heavy-handed horror, those open to genre-blending nightmares will find themselves both unsettled and entranced.

DNF'd, This book started off great until it took a turn and got weird. It felt so random and chaotic and it felt ruined to me. I was not expecting the turn of this book especially when the book mentions the vibes of Saw.

Let's take one of the best creepypastas every and make a uninspired retelling of it that doesn't even get close to how good the original was. Just like every time something like this happens I get my hopes up and then they are violently dashed against the ground.

Nine escape rooms in one haunted Barcelona mansion. There's a huge cash prize if you complete the game but no one has. Joe thinks he might be able to do it when he's egged on by Helen. He's running to escape his grief over the death of his wife she's a UNICEF worker. This is an interesting concept but ultimately it wasn't for me. Not Bates' fault -he's crafted a clever one. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Over to others.

I really tried to like this book, but the deeper in I got, the harder it was. It was very hard to connect or even root for these characters, and they had little depth. And while it does move at a quick pace, the writing did not hold my attention.

i am new to this type of book. but had read a really dark book recently by chance after being given it as a birthday gift and so i wanted to try another that sat itself i the horror genre. and i wasnt sure what to expect. and i think i need to read more as one thing for sure its certainly better than what the typical horror meant back in the day. when i new of horror it was just gore for gore reasons and definitely didnt make sense. where as this took my more internally horrific and mentally weirded me out which i kind of love in a book. i like my mind on stilts.
what i did love is that i had no idea where this was headed. to be honest i was reeling from the off wondering why when give the contract these two's first reaction to this was to "thanks, byeeeeeeee". but yes i didn't know where it would go or how it would end and for that i quite liked it as usually with my thriller books i have inklings or all over suspicions.
im still not quite sure how i would react to this book and im still not sure, haha. but for that i think i rather liked it and will definitely like to dip my toe into more.

I love bad horror movies, and I always think I will love bad horror books. But I don't. They just don't work the same.