The House in the Pines: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller - a twisty thriller that will have you reading through the night

Product Information

Reyes’ thriller, published Tuesday by Dutton, tells the story of a woman who believes that a friend’s death years before was the result of murder—and discovers that the friend’s boyfriend at the time has been linked to other mysterious deaths. 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?

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes | Waterstones

Maya does her Miss Marple thing to try to find out what really happened to Aubrey, to find out how Frank killed her, and one more thing. During the few weeks in which she dated Frank, there were multiple episodes in which she lost hours of time. Did Frank drug her? There is peril aplenty, as we take Maya’s word that Frank is a killer, so all her activity might be putting her in mortal peril. If only the cops had taken her seriously, but you know the cops in such almost stories never do. 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 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.” In any case, Maya is especially freaked out by the video because her best friend Aubrey also dropped dead for no apparent reason the summer before Maya went to college.

What to know

So thanks to my mad girl crush on Reese that I’ve had since I was a child and she starred in The Man in the Moon, I can’t resist her siren’s song and her (nearly always) awful book choices. In all honesty, I live in perpetual fear that I will miss out on another Paper Palace which earned a rare 5 Star from me and was one of the best things I read that year. Buuuuuuuuut, most of the time they are pretty crappy and this was no exception. These questions have been tailored to this book’s specific reading experience, but if you want more ideas, we also have an article with 101 generic book club questions. Maya plays the bar recording for him and he finds Frank’s strangely rhythmic cadence “deeply sinister.”

House in the Pines: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick The House in the Pines: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

The only part of the story I really didn’t get was the connection to the book that Maya’s father had been writing. This seems to be really symbolic, both in the synopsis and throughout the story itself, but I couldn’t make the connection between that story and what was happening to Maya. 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. All in all, I think this is a good and entertaining thriller. There are uneven parts but it really does try to cover many different topics from friendships, mother/daughter relationships, jealousy, addiction and more. Ana Reyes’s debut is chilling, atmospheric, and addictive—a perfect thriller. I didn’t want it to end.” Overall, this psychological thriller felt menacing and chilling at times. It also had suspense, interesting characters, and a thought-provoking story line. If you enjoy psychological thrillers with an unreliable narrator, then this may be the book for you.

Success!

So much of The House in the Pines is meant to show us why Maya (and Christina) could have been susceptible: Maya’s family history of mental illness, Christina’s drug addiction and work as an artist, Maya’s imaginative and creative side. I enjoyed this book and thought it was a unique premise. The story centers on Maya, whose best friend Aubrey died suddenly while with the guy Maya was dating named Frank. There is something weird and creepy about Frank that Maya can’t put her finger on, but she is convinced he had something to do with the death. 7 years later she sees a video posted online where another woman seemingly just keels over and dies while also in Frank’s presence and Maya knows she has to get to the bottom of what Frank is doing to these people. Our unreliable narrator in this story is Maya. Maya has been addicted to Klonopin and alcohol for the past several years. Maya no longer has her Klonopin, and is experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Some of the withdrawal symptoms are paranoia, hallucination, and insomnia. After seven years later, she has Klonopin withdrawals, hiding the truth from her boyfriend Dan she’s living with, suffering insomnia and obsession about a YouTube video that shows a young painter named Cristina dies behind her boyfriend’s eyes as they sit at the dinner. That boyfriend is the same man haunting her for seven years, who might be responsible for her best friend’s Aubrey’s death. Powerfully eerie and atmospheric, The House in the Pines is a compelling mix of psychological thriller and dark fairy tale. By focusing not on whodunnit but how and why, Ana Reyes’ stellar debut explores the many ways our memories can fail us—and how they can set us free.”

House in the Pines by Ana Reyes - Publishers Weekly The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes - Publishers Weekly

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? I was able to listen to a final version as well. Although the narrator was fine there was not a heads up when we were in the past, I like a heads up. Steven says that Christina left him a note saying she was going to go live with Frank in his cabin. He tells Maya not to go there. At her mom’s house, Maya finds the book her father was writing and recalls that she put it away after Aubrey’s death as she found it too upsetting to read.Apparently most people are NOT susceptible to hypnosis, but people with vivid imaginations (like artists and teenagers and, apparently, people who read a lot) are. How did Maya’s addiction impact her credibility, if at all? As the novel went on, did Maya’s credibility change for you? If so, what was the turning point? An ancient poplar loomed at the entrance to the abandoned road, its rounded mass of huddled gray limbs reminding her of a brain. She passed beneath its lobes, twigs branching like arteries overhead as she entered the forest.-------------------------------------- Deep in these woods, there is a house that’s easy to miss. Maya recalls (not sure if in the past or present) that her mom (Brenda) met her dad and his family on a church trip to Guatemala. Maya’s grandparents were Brenda’s host parents. Brenda and Jairo fell in love and she got pregnant, but then he died, shot by the Guatemalan army.