Review: We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

Title: We Used to Live Here

Author: Marcus Kliewer

Length: 318 Pages

Category: Horror, Suspense

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: We Used to Live Here defied whatever expectations I might have had going into it. I thought it was just going to be a spooky story, which it was, but it’s also intriguing and mind-bending. I’m still thinking about it days later. That’s not a bad thing at all.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, uncanny and inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

Review: My daughter recommended this book to me. If you’d like to know how it went, when I finished I asked her, “What the hell did I just read?” Honestly, I’m still not sure. I have a book hangover.

We Used to Live Here isn’t a book to read if you like having all your questions answered in the end. Or especially not if you like to know exactly what’s going on or to feel in control of a situation. When a family of five shows up on Eve and Charlie’s doorstep, it’s a seemingly innocent, though wholly unwelcomed, event. The man, Thomas, tells Eve it’s his childhood home and asks if he and his family can do a quick tour so he can show them all where he grew up. This is the first of many red flags because a) what kind of rational human would make such a request, and b) what kind of rational human would allow complete strangers into her home to look around? NO. AND. NO.

But then there’s the little part of me that was raised a long time ago who whispered that being friendly to folks is a simple matter of being welcoming and a good neighbor and citizen. So I felt a deep commiseration for Eve, who’s a people pleaser and can’t say no at the expense of a stranger’s feelings, even if it means ignoring her better judgement.

Rest assured, everything goes straight to hell from there.

According to my daughter, there’s a multi-verse happening here and I shouldn’t try to think too hard about it, just go with it. That works because we’re talking about false memories, bizarre visions, doppelgängers, dire warnings, time shifts, a house of horrors that spontaneously morphs, and other weird shit. Trying to guess who’s sane and who isn’t, who’s dangerous and who isn’t, is a total crapshoot. Good luck and try not to die is the best I could hope for, for Eve and Charlie. But mostly Eve. Charlie is ephemeral, less a fully realized character and partner than a yardstick by which to measure Eve’s reality. But is Charlie even real? Yes and no. Sort of. Who knows.

Thomas is the outlier. Where and how Thomas fits in is always the overriding question.

There are quite a few readers who didn’t love this book. I get where they’re coming from. There is no happy ending for the characters. The story isn’t tidy; the author leaves his story defiantly undone and his characters brazenly unsettled. I loved it. We Used to Live Here defied whatever expectations I might have had going into it. I thought it was just going to be a spooky story, which it was, but it’s also intriguing and mind-bending. I’m still thinking about it days later. That’s not a bad thing at all.