Review by Lauren: The Uninvited

The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones

Mimi Shapiro had a disturbing freshman year at NYU, thanks to a foolish affair with a professor who still haunts her caller ID. So when her artist father, Marc, offers the use of his remote Canadian cottage, she’s glad to hop in her Mini Cooper and drive up north.

The house is fairy-tale quaint, and the key is hidden right where her dad said it would be, so she’s shocked to fi nd someone already living there — Jay, a young musician, who is equally startled to meet Mimi and immediately accuses her of leaving strange and threatening tokens inside: a dead bird, a snakeskin, a cricket sound track embedded in his latest composition.

But Mimi has just arrived, so who is responsible? And more alarmingly, what does the intruder want?

Part gripping thriller, part family drama, this fast-paced novel plays out in alternating viewpoints, in a pastoral setting that is evocative and eerie — a mysterious character in its own right.

First Impressions: Not too thrilled, to be honest. I bought it on a whim after seeing a "Staff Picks" sticker on it at the book store, and it's been sitting in my closet since November.

The Uninvited definitely exceeded my expectations :) I wouldn't exactly refer to it as a thriller, but it did have a lot of different components -mystery, action, a somewhat romance, drama. I read it in a day, completely unable to put it down, and although I did find the writing to be a little awkward at first, I quickly bypassed it and just let myself get into the story.

I really liked the characters and how Tim Wynne-Jones managed to connect you to even the creepiest of them... I found myself shipping characters I definitely should not have been shipping... But no matter what I tried to tell myself, I still saw the humanity and reasoning in every one of them, and couldn't help siding with the bad guys :p The book switches between 3 different perspectives, which I also liked because I got a little extra insight into everything. Two sides (or three I guess at some points) to the story.

Final Impressions: Great book, interesting, well written, and, as a little side note, it's a canadian read, taking place about an hour from where I live :)

Check out Alex's review of The Uninvited here.

This is also our 100th review! :D :D