Book Review: The Nesting

 

BOOK TITLE: The Nesting

AUTHOR: CJ Cooke

DESCRIPTION OF BOOK COVER: Two sets of branches surround the title with an elk head at the top and birds. The branches surround the title and author name. Colors are blue, white and black.

GENRE: Horror/Gothic

PAGES: 416

BLURB:

The woods are creeping in on a nanny and two young girls in this chilling modern Gothic thriller.

Architect Tom Faraday is determined to finish the high-concept, environmentally friendly home he's building in Norway – in the same place where he lost his wife, Aurelia, to suicide. It was their dream house, and he wants to honor her with it.

Lexi Ellis takes a job as his nanny and immediately falls in love with his two young daughters, especially Gaia. But something feels off in the isolated house nestled in the forest along the fjord. Lexi sees mysterious muddy footprints inside the home. Aurelia's diary appears in Lexi's room one day. And Gaia keeps telling her about seeing the terrifying Sad Lady…

Soon Lexi suspects that Aurelia didn't kill herself and that they are all in danger from something far more sinister lurking around them.

# OF STARS: 4(ish)

***

I’m kinda sad because I really, really, really was looking forward to this book. And for the first 375 odd pages, I really enjoyed it! But oh dear, the ending….

Let’s start over.

The Nesting is a gothic/horror/ kinda drama with paranormal and supernatural elements and a tone of the darker fairy tale. That sounds like a lot, but it makes for a very atmospheric, brooding sort of novel with scary and tense parts interspersed in the sad or heartwarming parts.

The book follows Lexi (known for most of the book as Sophie) who takes the job of a nanny out of sheer desperation. Homeless, suicidal, depressed, and just generally a mess, she takes what she thinks is serendipity and throws a fake resume at a job post which immediately takes her on. (Ok, you have to suspend some belief right away, but that’s fine). The setting is in rural Norway where dark spirits of the land still hold sway.

The story also follows the fall of Aurelia who has passed away under weird circumstances. Most people would say suicide, but it seemingly came out of nowhere to her husband and two children leaving a very grief-stricken husband and a traumatized little girl (the baby is far too young to understand). For part of the book, we follow Aurelia’s descent into post-partum depression made worse by the spirits of Norway punishing her family for transgressions against the land (namely building a house and diverting a river, cutting down trees and accidentally poisoning a waterway).

I don’t want to delve too deep because it ruins the atmosphere if readers know too much.

My main issue was the last thirty odd pages. The ending.

Endings are important. They have to be satisfying, they have to leave an impression and they should wrap things up. And they should not contradict the beginning! At least not without an explanation.

Unfortunately, the end of The Nesting wasn’t very satisfying, thrilling, nor did it wrap things up well. And it did totally contradict the prologue! In fact, I’d recommend not reading the prologue at all, as it feels like it was part of an earlier draft that was supposed to get cut out but wasn’t. As a result, the stuff that happens there isn’t what happens at the end and so it makes no sense. And the other stuff that happens was too rushed with no real build up. Finding out a piece of Lexi’s background for example that feels super important and like it should have been mentioned far, far earlier was slapped on at the end instead and so it has very little impact. And the way another character behaves at the end rather contradicts how she acted throughout. Just weird. And I even went back through bits of the beginning and middle, but there was no foreshadowing that I could see.

I really wanted to give this book a full 5. Most of it is amazing! Emotional, tense, creepy, and atmospheric, it has it all for a gothic horror. What Aurelia goes through with her nightmares hit me particularly hard because I’ve been there (having given birth myself relatively recently and having some post-partum anxiety). Lexi was a little bit of an exercise in suspension of belief, but I’m fine with that and it definitely works for the genre. The folklore is dark and moody, the setting is deliciously described, and the main characters are all really good.

But I’m afraid that the last thirty odd pages was enough to knock it down. It felt rushed, disorganized, and contradictory to what happens at the beginning. If you don’t want quite the same experience I had, start at Chapter 1, and read the prologue as an example of a rough draft maybe? It was well written and set the tone, but then it was forgotten for the ending, so you end up with something that makes no sense. (Believe me, I went back twice trying to find the link and failed utterly. I suppose as a stretch the prologue was supposed to be another nightmare? But it’s never referenced, so I think it was just forgotten by the author and editors. Meant to be cut or changed and wasn’t). 

ETA: talking to my sister, I wonder if I should be saying 'Blink twice, CJ Cooke, if the publisher or an editor made you change stuff that you didn't want to'. It rather had that feeling that someone else came along and said 'it would be a good idea to do this' and the author had no choice.

If you like gothic, moody, atmospheric horror, The Nesting is a good book. Just don’t look too closely at the ending.