It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books, who offered me an ARC in exchange for an honest review! It was released earlier this month, so check it out!
For all that has ever been, the house remembers. It is a house haunted by memory.
Samantha lives with her mother in a house, haunted not by ghosts, but memories. She is used to viewing snippets from her family history, but when her pregnant sister moves back in, a new and vicious entity appears, one that does not seem to be from the past at all.
This was an interesting read, one that I enjoyed yet couldn’t find completely satisfying. Samantha is our main character and honestly, I am slightly conflicted about her. For the most part, she was a character I enjoyed. She had a fascinating job and an open minded view of the world, refreshing after my last read. She had strong convictions and a healthy curiosity. The way she interacted with her house and its memories was appealing to me, and is basically how I think I would do things. However, her behaviour was somewhat immature in a lot of ways. She just read younger to me than she actually was.
Elizabeth and Agnes were good characters in their own ways. Agnes especially was deeply flawed and this makes her actions in regards to atonement perfectly heart breaking. It was also wonderful to observe their family dynamic and interactions, grounding the otherwise unusual story in a reality readers are familiar with.
The ancestral home of the Wakefields and the swamp that neighbours it are great settings for the story. The house was a unique take on the haunted house setting, prompting readers to consider the differences between ghosts and memories, and what kinds of memories your home might project. The physical aspects of the house are bizarre and twisty, reminding me a great deal of the Winchester Mystery House.
The swamp, hiding its own secrets, is ventured into from time to time as well, a focal point of Samantha’s passion for archaeology. It makes for a mysterious and claustrophobic setting, as relevant to the various generations of the Wakefield family as their home.
The story itself is perhaps less unique than other aspects of the novel. There were plot points that were somewhat predictable. And, while I am generally not a reader that prefers everything to be explicitly stated, some further explanation here and there could have improved my enjoyment and understanding. I also feel that, if the pacing was more consistent, some of my issues would not have existed.
What I find to have been particularly effective about It Will Just Be Us was the overall atmosphere, helped along by an intricate and beautiful (though occasionally overblown) style of writing. The lyrical descriptions and prioritised details lend themselves to an eerie, dreamlike feeling. If you are the kind of reader who doesn’t enjoy lots of detail however, you may not enjoy the writing style as much as I did. Truly, when I reflect on my time with the book, it is the odd feeling it evoked within me that stands out.
So, while I found myself coming out of It Will Just Be Us feeling as if something was missing, i had a good time with it, and would recommend it to readers who enjoy mystery, horror, and a unique twist on a well established horror subgenre.
View all my reviews
Rebecka O'Malley 