This was a book I had high hopes for, but it failed to wow me. I put this in the liked but didn't love category. The author does a good job looking at addiction and memory. This book was atmospheric which I love in books, but again, I thought this was just ok at best. It was a little slow and when the reveal happened, I wasn't overly excited about it. The best part of this book for me was the atmosphere the author created. Salon - "House in the Pines" thriller author on the "dark side of nostalgia" with a narrator no one believes

The book’s narrative structure is also erratic at times. The House in the Pines jumped from present to past to present without any markers to orient the reader. I could have really used a heading for each chapter with the date. I felt the book is really about the relationship between Maya and Frank (a creepy older librarian who tries to get Maya to abandon her plans for college and live with him) and how their relationship casts a dark shadow over her life in the present. That aspect of it reminded me quite a bit of My Dark Vanessa, another book about abuse and trauma. And this is what I think The House in the Pines is really about. Things I didn’t like: last third of the book was vague and a little pointless. The big revelation was way too much far fetched for me. I didn’t buy it! And the conclusion is a little vague, semi satisfying. At this point, the prescriptions have run out. She needs to stop. It's going about as well as would be expected, which is to say, not well at all. Then Maya makes a disturbing discovery.This story follows Maya. When Maya was a Senior in high school, her best friend Aubrey, died suddenly, mysteriously and with no identifiable cause, directly in front of Maya's eyes. The only other person around, a young man named Frank, fled the scene.

The novel works as an intense psychological thriller that thrives on subtle, but forceful, action.” I believe in the unique abilities of human brain and how it could be manipulated but some parts of the explanations about events seem a little illogical for me! I was waiting for some cool (or at least logical) resolution to The House in the Pines that did not happen.

Now, another woman from Maya’s hometown has died in the same strange, unexplained way, and Maya believes only she can save the next innocent girl.

In The House in the Pines, Ana Reyes delves into a complex female friendship and the fragile nature of memory to weave together a smart, eerie, and completely addictive story of psychological suspense. Reyes is a debut author to watch.” PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and Ana Reyes provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for January 03, 2023. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine. Maya finally feels able to face her past. She throws herself into an investigation, not only of what happened to her and Aubrey all those years ago, but also to the young woman at the diner. Years after a young woman's sudden death in her best friend’s kitchen, a viral video reopens questions left unanswered. This was a book I had high hopes for, but it failed to wow mIt had me guessing,” Witherspoon said in a video accompanying the post. “And like all amazing thrillers, it has a crazy twist that I can’t tell you, because it will give the whole thing away.”

How do you feel about Maya’s decision to hide her addiction from her boyfriend, Dan? Do you think it’s ok to withhold some truth from your partner? For a time I even wondered if The House in the Pines was going to turn paranormal, OR if the more mystical parts of The House in the Pines were intended to be a nod to the magical realism sometimes found in Latin American fiction. (In the book, Maya’s father was even studying literature with an emphasis on magical realism). Additionally, her mother, who has years of experience as an EMT, may be just the person to help Maya through the painful withdrawal process. Ana Reyes’s debut is chilling, atmospheric, and addictive—a perfect thriller. I didn’t want it to end.”At the end of the novel, Maya decides that she will return to Guatemala and finish her father’s story by ‘writing Pixan home’. What’s the significance of this decision? Cliches don’t mean a bad book! But The House in the Pines features some major thriller cliches of the 2010s and 2020s, from the substance abusing unreliable narrator reminiscent of books like The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window and The House Across the Lake to the character returning to her hometown after the traumatic murder of her best friend (see All Good People Here, The It Girl, The Shards , Stay Awake, Nice Girls and, well, let’s be honest and say that all of it might have started in 2004 with Veronica Mars and her desire to get to the bottom of the death of her BFF Lilly Kane. RIP, Lilly). I DEVOURED this book! Reyes’s prose is sensuous and transportive, threaded through with a sense of underlying dread. This remarkable debut confidently explores themes of storytelling, generational ties, complicated female friendships, and control.” Obviously The House in the Pines was a had me at hello since it featured not only a house on the cover, but also a house in the name. How could I not immediately want it, right? Then I started reading it and not only do we have a triple whammy of an unreliable narrator (she’s an insomniac . . . because she’s going through Klonopin withdrawal . . . . and she’s boozing to take the edge off/help her go night-night). Again . . . .