The Book:
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Published September 28th 2021 by Nightfire
Date read: May 9, 2021
The Characters:
Ted, who lives on Needless St.
Dee, whose sister disappeared nearby as a child
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three.
A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time.
A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.
And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible.
An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.
The Twist:
This was a book about DID. First we find out that Olivia is one of Lauren’s alters, created to hide from the pain that Ted was causing her. At this point, we still think that Lauren is Lulu. Nighttime is another alter, but I can’t remember if he really had much point other than helping to integrate them.
Dee chases Ted through the woods thinking that he has Lauren in a bag and is going to kill her, but is bit by a snake. In her delirium, we find out that her memory about that day at the beach had been unreliable. Lulu had followed Dee while she hit on Trevor, and while Dee and Trevor were fooling around, Lulu slipped on some rocks and hit her head and died. Dee saw her dead body, but the police/adults never found it. The police officer suspected Dee. Dee was looking for Lulu’s body but had lied so convincingly over the years that she herself believed Lulu was still alive.
We then find out that Lauren is another alter of Ted’s, created when he was just a child, and that he gave all the pain of his mother’s abuse to Lauren so that he didn’t have to endure it. Ted stayed “inside” in his own mind whenever his mother was in a bad mood. His mother apparently used to experiment on him surgically, which caused his scars and is what her tapes were about.
Ted’s therapist was also abusing him and making his condition worse.
I knew Ted was innocent, but I didn’t guess the DID storyline. Once I found out about Olivia though, I did start to think that Lauren was an alter as well. The clues were definitely there–the bike riding, shopping for the leggings, hints about how Lauren couldn’t go outside.
The last twist was that Ted’s mother was the one who took Lulu’s body for more of her medical experiments.
The Ending:
Dee dies from the snake bite. Snakes were her one true fear because they slithered out from under Lulu’s body when she found it.
Ted’s alters integrate, he gets therapy from a real therapist, and starts to become a part of society again.
The Review:
Thank you so much to Tor Nightfire for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is probably the best-executed book I have read so far this year. I’m not sure how to review it in its entirety without spoilers, so I will keep my thoughts brief on public forums and invite everyone who’s read it to my blog post (coming soon) for a spoiler discussion. The description is vague on purpose, and the best thing to do is just dive in without any information. I read some reviews after I finished the book that spoiled the main twist, so beware!
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for an ALC of this incredible audiobook. I loved the story, but the audio production made it ten times better. I can’t believe this is all one narrator! Often, I’m not a fan of male narrators trying to do female voices, but Christopher Ragland did an incredible job of matching all the different characters. Five-star audio production, and five-star book.
This story is about Ted, a recluse suspected of a child’s abduction. The perspectives switch between Ted, the sister of the abducted child, and that of Ted’s cat. The cat chapters were a little kooky (who knew cats could be religious!), but such a creative way to describe Ted from another point of view. I loved Olivia!
Looking back from the end of the book, I’m amazed at how well-executed this story was. I feel like I need to re-read this book in order to catch all the clues I missed!
TW: child abuse, portrayal of mental health
