The Book:
Somebody’s Home by Kaira Rouda
Published January 18th 2022 by Thomas & Mercer
Date read: January 4th 2022
The Characters:
Tom
Julie
Jess
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
A quiet neighborhood. A lovely home. A promising new beginning. In a heartbeat everything can change in this propulsive novel of suspense by USA Today bestselling author Kaira Rouda.
Julie Jones has left her suffocating marriage. With her teenage daughter, Jess, she’s starting over. Their new house in Oceanside is the first step toward a new life. Even if it does come with the unexpected. The previous owners, a pastor and his wife, have left something—or rather someone—behind…
Tom Dean has a bitter hatred for the father who considers him a lost cause, and for the woman who’s moved into their family’s house. The only home he’s ever known. He’s never going to leave. She thinks he’ll be gone in three days, but Tom has the perfect plan.
For a newly single mother and her daughter, a fresh start is the beginning of a nightmare. Before the weekend is over, somebody is going to get exactly what they deserve.
The Twist:
Tom was planning to kill his father at church, and possibly others. His “friends” were a group of incels who were egging him on.
Roger got busted in a sex ring scandal and had propositioned an undercover cop, offering to pay her for sex. On the same day he was arrested, Jess attended a party where drunk high schoolers played a Nazi-sympathizing drinking game. Both stories exploded in the media.
Feeling abandoned by all her friends, Jess turned to Tom for company. She quickly realized he was crazy, and he admitted his plan to kill his father. Jess escaped, called her mom who warned the police, and was hiding in a nearby park when she realized her father was going to the house where Tom was.
When she went back to stop her parents from going in, Tom already had her dad hostage. Tom killed Roger and Doug, and Julie and Sandi showed up in time to stop him from killing Jess. The police showed up and arrested Tom.
The Ending:
Sandi and her boys moved to Temecula. Jess and Julie moved back to Roger’s house. Tom went to jail and liked it there.
The Review:
Thank you to Let’s Talk Books for a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
Kaira Rouda is the queen of the love-to-hate character! I wrote the saddest little review for The Favorite Daughter back when I first started my book blog, but what I remember most is how fun it was to despise Jane in that book. The characters in Somebody’s Home are similar. Individually, I despised them all. Except maybe for Sandi, but sometimes I wanted to slap a backbone into her. Together, though, their terrible personalities merged into a perfectly thrilling story. I was so eager for all of them to get their comeuppance.
The chapters are short, so this book flies by. I couldn’t figure out what the opening scene had to do with the rest of the book until the plot caught up to it, and it was fun to see everything finally click into place.
Somebody’s Home won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoyed Rouda’s previous novels, you are sure to enjoy this one as well.
Trigger warning: anti-semitism, domestic violence, child abuse, religion
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