The House in the Pines: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller - a twisty thriller that will have you reading through the night

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In The House in the Pines, Ana Reyes delves into a complex female friendship and the fragile nature of memory to weave together a smart, eerie, and completely addictive story of psychological suspense. Reyes is a debut author to watch.” Once Maya finally admits to Aubrey the truth behind her relationship with Frank, Aubrey surprises her. She's afraid of him too. Just as the two girls begin to make connections, on that very day, Aubrey ends up dead. During their last year of high school, Maya's best friend, Aubrey dropped dead while in the presence of Frank, a man they had been spending time with over the summer. Seven years have passed, and Maya has a secret addiction to klonopin which she has been keeping secret from her boyfriend, Ben.

It had me guessing,” Witherspoon said in a video accompanying the post. “And like all amazing thrillers, it has a crazy twist that I can’t tell you, because it will give the whole thing away.” This story follows Maya. When Maya was a Senior in high school, her best friend Aubrey, died suddenly, mysteriously and with no identifiable cause, directly in front of Maya's eyes. The only other person around, a young man named Frank, fled the scene.

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Things I didn’t like: last third of the book was vague and a little pointless. The big revelation was way too much far fetched for me. I didn’t buy it! And the conclusion is a little vague, semi satisfying. I’m giving three solid stars because it was still intriguing, face paced, truly hooked me till the end. But I was expecting more satisfying ending!! At this point, the prescriptions have run out. She needs to stop. It's going about as well as would be expected, which is to say, not well at all. Then Maya makes a disturbing discovery. A big component is that Maya has gaps in her memories of her time with Frank and what happened with Aubrey. So with that, she becomes somewhat of an unreliable narrator and the reader has to decide if what Maya is relying is actually the truth.

If it were guaranteed to work, would you ever consider undergoing hypnotherapy to correct a habit or forget about a painful experience? Why or why not? Maya and Dan’s characters have depth. Maya is intelligent, loves poetry and reading, and likes a good buzz. However, she hasn’t been able to write after college. Is she delusional, is she in danger, or is it all a dream? Dan is kind, open and honest, loves books, is studying for law school exams, and is a procrastinator. The secondary characters of Maya’s mom, her friend, Aubrey, and Frank play pivotal roles in the story. That said, I was not a fan of a woman lead character, once again, harboring alcohol and drug abuse. I’m extremely tired of this plot device in thrillers. It’s overdone at this point. Overall, this psychological thriller felt menacing and chilling at times. It also had suspense, interesting characters, and a thought-provoking story line. If you enjoy psychological thrillers with an unreliable narrator, then this may be the book for you.

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This was a book I had high hopes for, but it failed to wow me. I put this in the liked but didn't love category. The author does a good job looking at addiction and memory. This book was atmospheric which I love in books, but again, I thought this was just ok at best. It was a little slow and when the reveal happened, I wasn't overly excited about it. The best part of this book for me was the atmosphere the author created. The mystery of what happened to Aubrey and also the other woman at the diner is very interesting. While Frank is present for both deaths, there’s no evidence of any foul play by him. And no drugs or anything like that showed up during the investigations. Salon - "House in the Pines" thriller author on the "dark side of nostalgia" with a narrator no one believes