A review by dhatislandbookworm
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Was this book creepy? Meh. Scary? Not at all. But was it entertaining? Ironically, HELL THE FUCK YEAH 😂 
 
Look, this book is peak WPS™ (iykyk 💀) 
 
WHY WOULD YOU LET A CREEPY FAMILY INTO YOUR HOME? WHY WOULD YOU INVITE THEM TO STAY FOR DINNER? WHY WOULD YOU LET THEM STAY THE NIGHT DURING A STORM AND THEN LET THEM GASLIGHT YOU THE ENTIRE TIME! 
 
I’m an admitted people pleaser too, but I’m not that naïve. You and your family would have to stay outside in the snow 🤷🏾‍♀️ 

The main couple broke every single horror movie rule within the first 30-45 minutes of this book. By then, my husband and I decided to just go along for the ride and provide hilarious commentary. 
 
The book was admittedly atmospheric and did include articles, Reddit threads, police reports, and morse code that you have to solve, which were fun! However, the morse loses impact in audio format, especially if you don’t listen in 1x, so I ended up purchasing the e-book to decode. The last 20% or so is the best part of the book, but there were also so many unanswered questions and plot holes that I was still left unsatisfied. 

Overall, I could see why this was optioned by Netflix! This does work as a fantastic screenplay and I would definitely read more work from Kliewer! However, We Used To Live Here is much stronger as a shorter body of work in my opinion. It also does not live up to the Get Out/Parasite tagline. (Publishers, I AM BEGGING to please be better about your comparison marketing!) 

Maybe this would be perfect for some, personally though, I would read the OG r/nosleep thread or just wait for the film adaptation. 
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