The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes

Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.

Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer–the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.

At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….

Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.

Published by Dutton
on January 3, 2023

Review:

When I read the synopsis of this book, I thought for sure I was going to love it. Sadly, that was not the case. I’m not someone who enjoys delivering bad reviews. I have written books – I know how hard it is. I know how much time and how much of you goes into your work, and when someone doesn’t like it, it stings. But I also know that most modes of entertainment – be it books, movies or music – are totally subjective. That said, this book just didn’t hit the mark for me.

First of all, I really like the unreliable narrator trope. Maya – our main character – is determined to kick her addiction to Klonopin, which she picked up seven years prior after her best friend mysteriously died. Convinced that Frank is responsible for Aubrey’s death, Maya discovers another mysterious death and watches a video of what happened before the woman mysteriously died, where she spots who she believes is Frank with the woman.

Maya leaves behind her loving boyfriend Dan to travel back to her hometown to visit her mom and try to get to the bottom of what really happened to Aubrey and maybe bring down Frank.

Keep in mind that Maya is coming down off of a seven year Klonopin addiction, so, yeah, a whole number of things could be clouding her better judgement. I was all in. I thought for sure that maybe there was some sort of paranormal element to this because why else would women just drop dead for no apparent reason?

The problem was, the story never really went anywhere. I found myself confused a lot of the time, but I kept pushing forward, convinced that it would all make sense, eventually. I started putting my theories together and one of them I came up with. I did so jokingly. I actually chuckled a bit when I thought of it because it seemed like a storyline from Days of Our Lives or something. When that theory was the one that played out, all the eye rolls ensued. I won’t give it away, but it was ridiculous to me. To make things worse, while Maya is able to prove who killed these women and how, there were no repercussions. The villain disappears and justice is not served, and Maya goes back to living her life with only the knowledge that she was right, but with no real resolution.

Now, on one hand, I know that not everything in life is tied up in a nice pretty bow, but usually we get some sort of closure – even if it’s simply the growth of a character, but I don’t feel like we got even that. In the end, it left me wondering what the point of the book even was.