Book Review: The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Well, THAT happened…

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt throughout a lot of this one. Jewell has crafted a bizarre, Shirley-Jackson-esque gothic family drama with cults and lost children and murder and suspicion and secrets and guilt and a host of other things that are almost overwhelming in their entirety but somehow work (mostly) seamlessly. The blurb led me to expect something very different – and while that’s usually a recipe for disaster, here it worked out better than expected.

The tale unfolds in three alternating voices. I don’t always like that as a construct, although in a complex tale like this one, where every narrator is unreliable either intentionally or unintentionally, it is probably the only way to tell the story without resorting to massive telling (as opposed to showing) along the way.

I generally find it to result in a bit of a jumpy ride – it’s inevitable that one narrative voice will resonate stronger or spark more interest, given that by definition the voices are different. It can mean uneven pacing and action, as revelations are often unevenly presented to turn the three voices into the full picture necessary to tell a well-rounded story. That occasionally happened here, but generally speaking I found all of the voices to carry their own narrative strengths and pull their own weight. The ride was mostly an even one, right up until the end.

The end felt a little rushed, given the slow burning build of the entire book to that point. Suddenly Libby found just the right people to answer all of her questions at the exact point in which she would otherwise have been left floundering… I realize that if she hadn’t, things would have had nowhere to go – but it still felt a little too pat and coincidental. Still, there were a few more tricks up Jewell’s sleeves once things started rolling downhill, revelation-wise, and the resulting winding-up bits were still entertaining even if they felt a little over-plotted.

Jewell has written a great, atmospheric thriller of the type you don’t see as often anymore (hence the Shirley Jackson reference – this one had definite We Have Always Lived in the Castle moments, in the best possible way). The story is entertaining, odd, creepy, and well-written and I’m definitely going to be looking for more from her!

My review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley. The book releases in the U.S. on November 5, 2019.