The first great strength of Hidden Pictures is the first-person narrative of the main character Mallory, a young woman in early recovery (18 months) from drug addiction. It is exceedingly difficult to review this book without heading feet first into spoiler territory, so I am going to keep the summary of the plot both brief and vague. I read the 372 pages over three evenings and had an outstanding time with this novel and even if the idea of a ‘twist’ ending is overhyped, I was very satisfied with how things play out and did not feel cheated in the slightest. For the most part it uses ambiguity beautifully, balancing a potential supernatural riff with a main character who is not quite an unreliable narrator. As King alludes to, it does indeed include some very clever twists, plot shifts and very sneaky misdirection. This is a clever page-turner which is hard to put down, demanding 100% of your attention. I do not always agree with the endless cycle of Stephen King quotations which appear on new releases, but on this occasion, King nails it. Hidden Pictures does precisely what its publicity promises and is an amazingly easy-to-read dark thriller. This is exactly the type of thriller with a supernatural edge to it which would be popular with readers who are not attracted to more traditional horror fiction. Most years there is a breakout ‘supernatural thriller’ hit and Hidden Pictures is clearly that book for 2022, which it will surely carry into 2023 with the momentum gathered from the surprising Goodreads victory.īut is it any good and worth the hype? Yes, and definitely yes. It also has this cool Stephen King quote on the front cover: “I loved it… the surprises really surprise, and it has that hard to achieve propulsiveness that won’t let you put it down.” Other quotes from Grady Hendrix, Ransom Riggs, and major UK newspapers The Times and The Daily Mail back up the fact it clearly did pick up mainstream coverage (even if it passed me by for whatever reason). The horror genre bubble is miniscule in comparison to the mainstream publishers which dictate the tastes of a massive percentage of the book buying public and as Hidden Pictures is released by Sphere, it certainly had one of the bigger boys promoting it. Interestingly, subsequent conversations with authors, bloggers and fellow reviewers revealed that others were equally mystified how a novel which had clearly picked up next to zero attention in the horror press could win such a big award. It is rare for a horror novel to do so outstandingly well in a major book competition without it appearing on my radar, so I had to track it down to satisfy my curiosity. I would definitely give the author another go and have heard wonderful things about his debut novel The Impossible Fortress.I had never previously heard of Jason Rekulak or his second novel Hidden Pictures until it reached the latter stages of the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award, eventually winning the horror category. Many people have given this book four and five stars so judge for yourself, it just might be a case of me not being the right person for the book. I do not mind suspending belief but the author was asking for a little too much in my opinion. I was too busy shaking my head and rolling my eyes to find that ending even a bit entertaining. I will state that I did not see that twist coming BUT any babysitter worth their salt would have had that figured out on the first day, I mean Teddy is five for crying out loud! And the last scenes were just too unbelievable to make this enjoyable. When I got to the 75-80 percent mark the book took a turn that I didn’t like. The character development was phenomenal and the cover is amazing. It was engrossing and the pages practically tuned themselves. I liked that the nanny, Mallory, had a dark past so it made it easy to brush her off. I was really enjoying the creep factor of a child possessed and communicating through sketching. Well, that’s what the new nanny, Mallory, is dealing with when Teddy starts to draw pictures of his invisible friend, Anya. What would you do if the child you’re watching starts drawing pictures like this?
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