The Verdict
This is my Incidents Around the House book review, completely spoiler free, so you can decide whether Josh Malerman’s haunted house novel deserves your weekend.
Short answer: yes, if you like slow dread. It’s creepy, strange and far sadder than I expected, but the middle repeats itself. I give it three and a half out of five. Spoiler free means no late reveals, no deaths and no twists, and by the end I’ll tell you exactly who this book is for.
What It’s About
Incidents Around the House came out from Del Rey in June twenty twenty-four. It’s told by a little girl named Bela, who lives with her mother and father in a quiet suburban house in Michigan. She calls them Mommy and Daddo, and the book is full of their jokes, drinks and late night talks. It’s set in the present day, with phones, babysitters and backyard parties, which keeps the haunting feeling close.
Bela also has a friend who lives in her bedroom closet. She calls her Other Mommy. They used to play. Now Other Mommy keeps stepping out of the dark, getting closer, and asking Bela the same strange question again and again.
A Child Tells It
The big hook is the voice. Everything is first person and present tense, inside the head of a child, and the author’s note says the unusual layout is on purpose. Narration sits against the left margin. Dialogue is indented and has no quotation marks. It’s all in the name of perspective.
That choice matters. Bela doesn’t understand everything she sees, so you understand it for her, and that gap is where the horror lives. The chapters are tiny, some only a few lines long, so it reads fast, and you keep going to learn what the grown-ups are hiding.
Meet Bela
Bela is the best thing in the book. She has one real friend at school, a girl named Deb, and a teenage babysitter she adores. She loves to dance, she wants a stuffed vulture from the zoo because vultures only eat what’s already dead, and she takes every figure of speech literally.
Her logic is lovely. She hears that recycling comes back as something else and starts thinking about where things go. Her innocence is the engine of the story, and the author knows exactly how much it will cost her, which makes the quiet parts hurt.
Is It Scary?
So, is Incidents Around the House scary? Yes, but in a specific way. There’s very little gore. What you get is dread: a closet door that isn’t quite closed, a smell your father can’t place, a creak in the ceiling at the worst moment, and a figure that’s just a little too large and a little too wrong.
The best scares are small and domestic, and they work because the house feels so ordinary. A few later scenes are properly frightening, and one bathroom scene made me put the book down for a minute. I’d call it unsettling and nightmare-ish more than jump scary.
One more thing: it’s scarier at night. The prose is plain and the chapters are short, so there’s nowhere to hide. If you read it alone in a quiet house, every creak in your own ceiling starts to feel like it’s part of the story.
The Parents
The surprise is that the parents are the real subject. Mommy and Daddo are funny and loving, and they also drink, argue and keep secrets, while Bela listens from her bed, pretending to be asleep. Daddo especially gives long, warm speeches about kindness and fear that sound like he’s talking to himself.
Their marriage is under strain, and Bela feels every bit of it. I won’t say more, but this is as much a book about a family cracking as it is about a monster. That’s what made me care, and it’s what Malerman is really writing about.
What Works
Three things work for me. First, the voice. Bela is observant, literal and sweet. She notices smells, sounds and the way adults look at each other over her head. Second, the pacing of dread in the first third, where the thing in the closet creeps nearer a little at a time.
Third, the ideas. The book keeps turning a house into a picture of a heart, with rooms, closets and hidden corners, and it earns that image by the end. Also, the dialogue between the parents is excellent. It sounds like real people trying to be funny in a crisis.
The Craft
I want to say something about the craft. Malerman is also a rock musician, one of the singer-songwriters of a Detroit band called the High Strung, and you can hear it. Sentences repeat like a chorus. A phrase comes back changed, and a refrain keeps returning until it gets a different meaning.
He’s best known for Bird Box, the twenty fourteen novel that became a Netflix film. Bird Box is loud and global. This one is small, claustrophobic and mostly set in one house and the family cars, and I think it’s the more personal book.
Compared To Other Haunted Houses
If you know the genre, you’ll hear echoes. The sense that the house itself is watching feels a little like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, from nineteen fifty-nine. The unsettling child’s view recalls The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, which is over a century old.
But Malerman does something different. Most haunted house books ask whether the ghost is real. This one cares much more about what a haunting does to the people stuck inside it, and it keeps asking what a house is really made of.
What Doesn’t
Now the criticism. The middle is repetitive. Once the family starts looking for help, a lot of chapters follow the same shape: someone sees something, everyone panics, they move somewhere new, and the adults talk. I felt the length around the halfway mark.
Also, the trick of Bela overhearing grown-ups who think she’s asleep is used often, and some of those speeches are longer and more philosophical than a real parent would give. And if you want a clear explanation of what the creature is, the book refuses to give you a tidy one.
The Ending, Without Spoilers
Let me say something about the ending without ruining it. It is bold and it is bleak, and I think it will divide readers. I found it earned, strange and a little heartbreaking, and I liked that it answers the emotional question even when it leaves the supernatural one open.
If you need every rule explained, you may close the book annoyed. If you like to think about a story for days, you’ll have plenty to chew on. I made a separate ending explained video for that, which is full of spoilers, so please finish the book first.
Content Warnings
Here are the content notes, as my own assessment. This is an adult horror novel with a child narrator, not a children’s book. Expect frequent strong language, including plenty of swearing, plus a lot of drinking and some drug use by the parents.
There are references to infidelity and sex, though nothing explicit. A child is in danger throughout, and there are scenes of fear, panic and violent domestic conflict. A death is mentioned too. If a frightened child is a hard line for you, be careful with this one.
The Scorecard
Time for the scores. Hook, four out of five. The premise and the voice grab you at once. Tension, three and a half. The first half is stronger than the second. Characters, three and a half, with Bela and her father as the highlights.
Pacing is the weak spot, two and a half. Impact, four, because the final images stayed with me for days. That averages out to three and a half out of five, a good, unusual horror novel with a saggy middle.
Who It’s For
Read it if you like haunted house stories that are really about people, if you enjoyed the quiet dread of Shirley Jackson, or if you want a quick, strange read with an ending to argue about. Josh Malerman fans will recognize his love of dark, simple ideas. It’s also a great pick for October, when the nights get long.
Skip it if you want fast action, tidy answers or a gentle read. Skip it if heavy profanity or a scared child bothers you. And if you plan to see the Other Mommy movie, the book is a darker story, so read it first.
Where To Get It
As of October twenty twenty-six, the film adaptation, called Other Mommy and directed by Rob Savage, is in theaters, but I’m only reviewing the novel here. Links to the book and the audiobook are in the description.
So tell me in the comments: did you have a childhood imaginary friend, and was it kind? If you liked this review, subscribe, and thanks for watching. I’ll see you in the next one.
