Rating:

“I wonder how the grief can still twist inside you … when you least expect it.”

Author: Daisy Pearce

Mina is an inexperienced, newly graduated Child Psychologist with enough trauma to easily keep a team of psychologists both busy and irritated. So, of course, it’s time for her to get in way over her head and go to the creepy countryside and offer her services to a family with a possessed child. The rando who told her about the case will also come along for the ride, because REDEMPTION.

Alice Walker is a young teen, supposedly possessed by a witch. She’s done and said weird things and thrown-up weird things, because what’s horror without vomit? Her father works in a slaughterhouse and is decidedly traumatized and odd (not to mention smelly). Her siblings are shockingly unaware of the seriousness of their sister’s new situation. Alice’s friends are suddenly absentee, and Alice’s mother is out of her depth. This bizarre family is the perfect prey for an inexperienced psychologist to cut her teeth, and so Mina shows up despite her starched fiancé’s common-sense suggestions.

After this . . . VERY little happens for a very long time. But there is atmosphere – right? We have the requisite creepy kid; a town of suspiciously hush-hush, superstitious locals; eerie noises; eyes in the wallpaper; and a creepy fireplace. That should be enough to sustain us through a couple of hundred pages, right? Plus, we have Mina’s own trauma and tragic background – and the clear fact that she is lying to herself about her past and trying to compensate through her job now. Add Sam – said rando from earlier – and his own tragic backstory and self lies, and you have ATMOSPHERE, right?

Image by Sam from Pixabay

Nope, you have yawns. Where, exactly, is this witch? Was she so bored that she just left the town? Can’t say I really blame her.

Mina shows why she is not being hired by spending very little time with the possessed girl she is supposed to help and a lot of time digging up pointless dirt with the yokels. After a very, very, very long time we find a creepy bottle, and supposedly that answers everything. Except it really doesn’t, but that doesn’t matter anyway, because after a few arbitrary deaths, we are going to switch from the witch story to a totally different one. Oh, and you will never find out what is in the walls. I guess whatever it was couldn’t stand the tedium and went on vacation too. I sure would.

With new storyline in tow, we find out that *gasp* the monster is man. Didn’t see that one coming. We get a near miss, some almost deaths, some suitable injuries, and horrific, totally foreseeable revelations for Mina and Sam. We knew why they were compensating with their supposed charity, but now they know too and must find the fortitude for self-forgiveness and moving on. Such a unique concept.

The witch is dead . . . or gone . . . or was never there . . . or was just an allegory and we have successfully confronted the evil in humanity and the horror of self-deception. Yay! Curtain close. Readers, wake up.

To say that Something In The Walls was the biggest nothing would be an understatement. Perhaps as a short story It could have worked, but all the dead space here, the “twist” we saw from the beginning, and the deus-ex-machina conclusion make this snoozefest into something that engenders more anger than revelation. It’s just another one of those horror novels that is trying to be atmospheric and smart and edgy and SAY something, and it is trying way too hard. Ultimately it fails. The vision had potential – sort of – but the execution left me bored and relieved to see the final page settle closed. Not recommended.

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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