Book review: Hidden Pictures, by Jason Rekulak
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I first heard of this novel when it won Goodreads' Popular vote for Best Horror of 2022. Curiosity piqued, I downloaded a sample to my Kindle. I was immediately sucked in by the narrative's voice: a young woman called Mallory who used to be a star athlete but, due to some personal losses, became a drug addict, cut off from family and friends. Also, Mallory somehow has the strange ability to sense when someone is observing her (discovered when she attends a university research experiment on parapsychology).
The novel opens with Mallory, a few months sober and living in a halfway house, ready to embark on her first job back in the real world, thanks to her sponsor’s help. She lands a babysitting job for a wealthy family who have just moved into an affluent neighbourhood in New Jersey.
Caroline and Ted Maxwell epitomise success. They are conscientious well-to-do liberals, who are aware of Mallory’s background but want to help her (Caroline works with drug addicts in a local hospital). They entrust their 5-year-old son Teddy into Mallory’s care, which I thought worked really well in establishing tension in the novel. You want Mallory to succeed in this job but you are also afraid she’s going to fuck it up, that something awful will happen to Teddy. And very soon the reader discovers there’s something strange going on in the Maxwell’s house.
There are a few big twists to the novel. The first one, which came as part of the design of the book, made me laugh out loud. I’m glad I went into the book not knowing anything about it - I think there’s a danger of guessing this first twist beforehand, and I feel particularly sorry for Brazilian readers as the publishers in Brazil put the first twist right on the book cover!
The next big twists come towards the end, which I didn’t see coming. They were a bit silly, to be honest, and didn’t work quite so well for me, though Rekulak does a good job of tying everything up by the final line.
All in all, it was a silly but entertaining read, though more of a paranormal thriller than a horror story.
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