We Live Here Now: A Novel

That’s an ending I did not foresee. This is so much more than a haunted house story. So much creepier. Both of the main characters exchange chapters, with another character occasionally having their own chapter. Miscommunication, obfuscation, hauntings(?), possessions(?), murder, scenes that will make you sleep with the lights on. Wow! I really enjoyed this book!

Very good, that's all I have to say......

I picked this one up for a book club, and honestly, I’m glad I didn’t buy it. We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough is a long, meandering, very British thriller filled with polite arguments, endless small talk, and a countryside escape that made me want to sprint back to London just for something to happen. Emily and Freddie are two people who should never have married, let alone shared a mortgage, move into a big, moody house called Larkin Lodge after Emily survives a fall and a sepsis coma. The setup screams gothic thriller with a fresh start, secret trauma, creaky floors, and things that go bump when no one’s watching. But instead of eerie tension, I mostly got a slow crawl through emotional misery. Emily and Freddie are both awful. She’s bitter and unfaithful. He is a self-pitying gambler with the personality of soggy toast. Their relationship is pure dysfunction on repeat, and every conversation drags like a car stuck in mud. The book tries to build suspense around what’s real and what’s imagined such as are the strange happenings in Emily’s head, or is the house truly haunted? Even after the twists, I just didn’t care. The supernatural element could have been fascinating. A magical third-floor bedroom that revives people but traps their worst traits as ghosts? That’s actually a fun premise! Unfortunately, it’s buried under pages of circular dialogue and dreary introspection. The pattern of “awful couple moves in, someone gets murdered, that person is dragged to the third floor and gets magically rebooted, then makes eggs” should have been darkly hilarious or at least chilling, but it just felt repetitive. By the time I reached the end, where the “good” halves of Emily and Freddie move on to their perfect life while their “bad” halves linger, plotting spectral revenge, I was mostly counting pages. Maybe British domestic thrillers and I just don’t click. The tone is all restraint and propriety, even when people are being resurrected from murder scenes. I wanted more bite, more madness, and more atmosphere. If you enjoy slow-burn psychological thrillers with a dash of supernatural weirdness and plenty of marital toxicity, you might enjoy this one. But if you’re looking for sharp pacing, likable characters, or genuine suspense, We Live Here Now will probably leave you, like me, checking how many pages are left.

The story was entertaining but not a book I would re-read or purchase

This was a slower burn, but about half way through things started clicking together and I needed all the answers.