Too drawn out and unrealistic
When Jules is offered a dream job house sitting a beautiful large apartment she jumps at the opportunity - but what is the catch?
I really enjoyed The Last Time I Lied, Riley Sager's last book (see my review here - https://www.kindig.co.uk/post/review-the-last-time-i-lied) so I was excited to receive the ARC for Lock Every Door. Skimming over the fact that the title actually has very little to do with the actual plot, I was a little disappointed with this offering.
Taken as a whole the plot is very good, it has a really climatic ending I didn't see coming and an interesting premise - a dream job with menacing undertones. I also liked the damaged character of Jules who has suffered a lot in her life including a sister who has been missing for years which adds to the plot nicely. However, I felt the book was very slow moving and didn't actually provide us with much to set the tone. The whole first 3/4s of the book take place in about 4 days and it didn't feel like enough time to set up a believable horror/psychological thriller. The 'scary' rules that are put in place just seemed sensible to me rather than disturbing as they are portrayed. Jules, our main character seemed to be overreacting to everything in the first 3/4s of the book - someone goes missing sure, but a lot of time is spent over-analysing the rules, looking up the past history of a very old building and reading too much into every conversation. There isn't enough horror, if that's what it's trying to portray or sinister psychology in any of the residents to actually make her motivations feel believable. As the book is written from her perspective I would expect her thought process to match her actions but that didn't seem to be the case here.
Overall Lock Every Door has a great premise and interesting ending but the set up was too drawn out with not enough plot building to match the main character's reactions. Thank you to NetGalley & Penguin Random House - Ebury Publishing for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
