Personally, the word “thriller” brings two things to mind. First, a catchy song by a pop legend. And second, a book genre that keeps you on your toes, has you guessing until the very end, and causes sleep deprivation because you can’t…stop…reading…

So you got zero zzz’s last night?

Nope. I slept like a baby. While reading The Family Upstairs, I was looking for a high-speed rollercoaster of a suspense novel. What I actually got was a slow ferris wheel ride to the top, only to get stuck there and wait five hours for a mechanic to arrive to get me down.

I really have no idea why this one flopped, especially since it ticks every box on the suspense novel checklist: An abandoned mansion, a cult suicide, a baby left behind, a swanky Chelsea setting… Yet, the plot just wasn’t there. Every time something interesting happened, it was never mentioned again, causing the story to have this start, stop, start, and stop again effect. There is literally a murder thrown in here and it never becomes a central part of the story. Baffling.

Did you say murder?

What kept me invested was the character development. I could tell Lisa Jewel knew her characters frontwards and back. We follow the POVs of three people: Libby, Lucy, and Henry. Henry was the engine to this runaway train; Jewel told his story from his perspective as a child growing up in the late ’80s. It’s here that we slowly learn about the cult his parents got involved with and his chilling decline from a privileged member of society to a boy who learns that there are worse things to lose than all of your money. Watching him witness David, the cult leader, take over his home and turn his parents into submissive puppets was heartbreaking and frustrating. I couldn’t believe half the shit he had to deal with. (Imagine going from attending a private school and planning luxurious vacations to getting locked in a house and prohibited from wearing shoes ever again.) Throw in the fact that he’s a kid trying to come to terms with his sexuality, without the help of a sane parent, and you have yourself a recipe for despair.

So he wasn’t the one murdered?

Present-day, we follow Libby, your typical mid-20s gal, scared of never climbing the corporate ladder or finding a husband to settle down with. She thinks she’s running out of time (and as a single 30-year-old with none of these things accomplished, I had a great time reading her inner dialogue and questioning my own life choices thus far). Well, her mini pity party ends quickly when she inherits this huge mystery house. It’s rundown and has a creepy history, but those things don’t tend to matter when you suddenly have millions of dollars in your pocket. Oh, and remember that left-behind baby I mentioned earlier? You guessed it: Libby was that baby!  She was found all alone in a house filled with deceased cult members, put up for adoption, and never actually told about her childhood horror story. She also learns that she’s only getting this mansion because her estranged siblings never came to claim it. Libby decides to do some investigating on the house, which throws her into an overall unexciting search for the family she never knew. The girl is naïve and the type of trusting that makes parents worry, but her underlining motivation of finding out who she really is sucked me in.

As for our third central character, Lucy, I get why her role in the story was essential, but she contributed nothing. Her life hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows. She has suffered through terrible relationships, abuse, and poverty all while trying to care for two kids. She’s basically going to any lengths to get her family out of France, and that’s it. She didn’t need to take up one-third of the book.

That’s all great, but what about the murder?

Besides the bland storyline, I couldn’t handle the number of loose ends I was left with by the time I finished. Clues get sabotaged without any reason. Remember that cult plotline? Don’t expect to find out what David’s endgame was. In all of Henry’s chapters, it’s obvious that he is writing or speaking directly to someone, but you’re never told why. (A letter? A will? An interview?) I think the ending was supposed to sound ominous, but by that point, I was over the teasing. This one was simply too anticlimactic for my taste.

BUT THE MURDER!

Oh? You want to know what happened with the whole murder thing? Well, now you know how I feel.

Too lazy to check Goodreads? I got you:

Title: The Family Upstairs
Author: Lisa Jewell
Series: None
Pages: 340 (hardback)
Publish Date:  November 5, 2019

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