The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

This is exciting! It is my first post of 2020, even though at the time of writing, it is still November. I hope everyone had a lovely New Year and is ready to start a new decade! For my first post, I'll be reviewing The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell. This was a BOTM book (go figure) and I was instantly sold when the tagline for the book was "Fascinated by cults?" Well yes, yes I am! I don't think I read anything more in the synopsis until I started the book and was like, wait, I don't know anything about this. Whoever wrote that line knew who their target audience was.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Twenty-five years ago, police arrived at 16 Cheyne Walk to discover three dead bodies in a line, all dressed in black, with a note telling them to take care of their baby, 10 month old Serenity Love, who was found safely in her crib. The four other children of the house were missing. Now, Serenity just turned 25 and goes by her adopted name, Libby, and is about to find out that she is the sole inheritor of 16 Cheyne Walk and learn of its gruesome past, with the help of an investigative journalist. Told from three perspectives, you learn about the cult that lived in the house and ruined innocent lives. Is Libby really ready to discover the truth about her parents and what happened to the children?

Content Warning: This book contains themes of cults and child abuse.

Since the book was just released, I am going to avoid spoilers as best as possible.

The book starts a bit slow for my taste. When the story is being told by Libby, if felt fine and that things were moving along just fine. But when the story was being told by Henry or Lucy, it felt a bit more sluggish. I really did not understand why anything was being told by Lucy because her present day story felt really pointless until about two-third through the book when it started to come together. One of the narrators is unreliable, so be wary of what you believe! It goes back and forth between present and past. I kept having a hard time thinking of the parts from the past as the past because it was late 80s, early 90s, and even though that was 30 years ago, it still feels like 10 years ago, but that's just me aging myself.

(Source: Giphy)

The characters are definitely an interesting bunch. Libby is a perfectionist because she had to be the adult when she was a child. Not that her adoptive parents were horrible, far from it, her mom was just a bit scattered. Lucy seems to attract the worst people in the world, but tries the hardest for her two children. Henry is pretentious, but is the readers view into what happened in the house when it was under control of the cult. The leaders of the cult, David and Birdie, are bizarre, as all cult leaders should be. Phinn and Clemency are the other two missing children from the house, and they are really stuck between a rock and a hard place as their father is a cult leader and their mother is a drunk and living elsewhere.

(Source: Giphy)

The twist at the end I did not see coming, but there were other surprises along the way that were a bit more obvious. Jewell does a good job of dropping little hints, but also tying everything up nicely in the end. Because I did not read the synopsis until after starting, the title did not make sense to me until it is revealed in the book, and I always love the part of the book where the title makes sense. I hate when the title seems to just be pointless; I want a big reveal, but I blame Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for that. Jewell gives beautiful descriptions of people, places, and feelings, but is not so overwhelming with them that you cannot paint your own picture.

I really enjoyed the book and piecing everything together and will definitely read another book by Lisa Jewell, which is good since I got Then She Was Gone from BOTM a while back.

Rating: 7/10
Author: Lisa Jewell
Genres: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Dates Read: November 5-6, 2019