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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I understand what the author was trying to convey but it just feels repetitive at this point. I will say, unlike other thrillers, it doesn’t go on and on about that aspect but it’s still present throughout the novel so that did take away from the story a bit for me. The Mystery This was an unusual thriller that does a truly impressive job of straddling that fine line between fantasy and believability. While utterly rooted in logic, the book is rich with supernatural tinges, really immersing the reader in Maya’s fanciful, and occasionally horrifying, reality. I personally wasn’t a fan of Dan, but I really enjoyed the exploration of Maya’s troubled relationships otherwise, particularly with Aubrey and with her mom. It was also great to see the contrast between the way Maya was treated by the cops in the present day versus just seven years ago, as policing continues to evolve. THE HOUSE IN THE PINES focuses on Maya's grief and determination to find out the truth about her high school best friend Aubrey's death. Maya suffers from a lot of trauma after her best friend's death and she abuses Klonopin and alcohol to mask the grief. Her boyfriend Dan is supportive towards Maya's grief, but Maya knows that she needs to learn how to cope with these memories. When Maya visits her mother's house, years after Aubrey's death, she believes she can handle the emotional baggage her hometown once gave her. However, when clues to Aubrey's death in fact link her to her ex-boyfriend Frank, Maya has to find out the truth about what happened to her best friend. 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.”

The House in the Pines is an excellent mystery/thriller that kept me intrigued from the beginning. What happened wasn’t what I’d expected, which is always a treat. The main character struggled with very real, relatable things in her life, which made her feel close the entire time. And her curiosity fed my curiosity. […] I also enjoyed the twist on present and past tense. In the present timeline the author wrote the book in past tense. In the past timeline the author wrote in the present. It was a very clever way to give an immediacy to the past (especially as the character began to recall events).” 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.” Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.the book) suffers from doing way too much at the same time […] I really struggled with following this narrative, and the drinking/pill popping trope is so overused at this point. However, I do think there’s a reader/audience for this book. The synopsis is calling it “utterly unique” and I can see that because as the story develops after the halfway mark, it is indeed very different than I expected. Readers will either love or hate the ending, which will make for great book club discussions.” Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summer. Maya wants to be a writer like her father who'd died at a very young age in Guatemala so Maya only has the stories that her mother has told her about her father. At the age of seventeen Maya's best friend (Aubrey) was talking to Maya's ex-boyfriend (Frank) and just dropped over dead, literally. Maya has always believed Frank had something to do with Aubrey's death but she didn't know how he did it and after police investigations they just thought Maya was delusional with grief.

In what ways were the various representations of home (Maya’s hometown, her family’s home in Guatemala City, Frank’s cabin, and even Pixan’s fictional home in the mountains) significant? Our unreliable narrator in this story is Maya. Maya has been addicted to Klonopin and alcohol for the past several years. Maya no longer has her Klonopin, and is experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Some of the withdrawal symptoms are paranoia, hallucination, and insomnia. Years after a young woman's sudden death in her best friend’s kitchen, a viral video reopens questions left unanswered.Maya is rattled. It seems like proof to her. She always knew Frank did something to Aubrey and now this other girl, this sort of proves it, doesn't it?