Review of “The House in the Pines” by Ana Reyes

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“The House in the Pines” by Ana Reyes was published in 2023. The book became popular thanks to Reese Witherspoon, who added it to her Club. As for me, I found it there, and I do not regret this. I have my reason to like this drama, and I want to explain why in this review.

My thought about “The House in the Pines”

The first and main reason is that it deals with the plot of abuse. When I started reading, I felt like I recognize this situation. Behavior, dialogues, and stupid ignorance in this story were all typical of an abusive relationship. I have been in such a relationship myself and I clearly know how it looks, therefore this book made me a little angry and sad when I started to read this novel. But I really appreciate the author for not romanticizing this relationship at the end.

I’m really glad that the new generation is beginning to talk about a new type of bond between two people and explain what is an unhealthy relationship. I hope that we can change our vision of romance and understand that relationship described in “The House in the Pines” is toxic. For my generation could only understand this poison after 10-15 years of tears and pain in their lives.

For this reason, I like this story and highly recommend “The House in the Pines” for reading, especially to young girls. This may also be a reason why Reese Witherspoon recommended it for her Book Club.

What else is good in this book?

“The House in the Pines” is really easy to read, with simple dialogs and descriptions. The plot moves quickly and doesn’t force you to slog through pages of ridiculous and boring descriptions or inner monologues.

The story has a strong plot in which the main character changes and improves from the beginning of the book. And most important that the ending is clearly intriguing, drawing readers in, and making thinking what really happens to the main character. This makes this story charming and engrossing. As for me, I was totally emotionally involved in the book when I read this story.

What I don’t like about “The House in the Pines”?

I can forgive the author as this for it’s her first book, but some of the character’s actions and behavior war illogical. It feels like something was missing from the book, something that was very important to me.

In addition, the police were not good too. The investigation was not well described and left behind the scenes. I wanted to know more details about the punishment of the main character, maybe it was because the police investigation was not well described. For me, this investigation looks like left behind the scene, which made me a little disappointed.

This was my biggest complaint about “The House in the Pines”.

My recommendation

This is a book not about philosophy or deep introspection. This story is more about life and relationship, and about what happens to us every day. It is an interesting detective story too, but when you read this novel, you can understand that the detective plot is just an additional part of the story.

I don’t recommend reading “The House in the Pines” to people who search for horror, thrillers. This novel is not that kind of book.

However, I recommend it to anyone interested in psychology and relationship in their own lives.