The Spare Room
Andrea Bartz
There are spoilers galore….continue reading if you’re nosey.
This book was a mentally exhausting mess, and with the story being set during the pandemic, ooo wee.
Kelly, after a breakup, moves in with an old HS classmate Sabrina (whom Kelly’s been stalking on social media btw….red flag 1/1,000) and her husband Nathan. Kelly is blown away by their beautiful neighborhood and spacious home….think Park Place & Boardwalk.
Kelly spends her time navigating her breakup-ish after moving out of the home she and her ex-fiancé Mike shared, making sense of her new surroundings, all while managing her intuition (which she appropriately refers to as her ‘gremlin’).
Soon enough 2+1 = 3….and they start getting it IN (because what else is there to do cooped up in the house?).
Kelly’s gremlin gets whiffs of new information about the couple’s previous lover, and she starts digging all up in these folks business.
Now the hot tub scene….this is where I figured I had it…The three of them are hugging and kissing, touching…all of a sudden Nathan takes bobbin for apples too seriously and starts drowning Kelly
I tell Kelly:
“This is your sign girl… go and find Dianne The Busy Body and ask her to get you the HELL up out of Park Place.”
Does she listen to me?
Then out of the BLUE little miss absent from class shows up, and now I have some serious questions. Maybe Sabrina and Nathan aren’t who I thought they were?
Babygirl ends up dead….and I’m like, nah, they are….they definitely are.
After a quick session of ‘whodunit’, the trio decides to take a nap before going out at night to bury Beth like an easter egg.
While Sabrina and Nathan sleep, Kelly’s gremlin rages relentless, and she soon finds the murder weapon….she gets caught….she and Nathan get into it, and Nathan…boom…is gone.
Sabrina and Kelly then make up some ish to tell the detectives, and after a lazy investigation, both walk free. They decide to start over and move out of Park Place, and Kelly decides to go visit Mike for one last goodbye (because when all your wounds have healed, re-opening one makes the most sense).
This book also makes you realize that perspective is a helluva drug….because as previous parts of the story were being re-told I’m like ‘HOW DID THEY GET THIS FROM THAT!?
I won’t completely spoil the ending, but I will say, everyone needs to be locked up…every last one of them. And the deceased? Lock them up posthumously.
Overall, this was a good listen…A quote from Kelly sums it up well
“Whatever you watch for, you’ll find.”
Plotitude 