I don’t know what sub-genre of thriller Our Dream Home, Room 21, and Her Last Christmas fall into, but they have a formula. The female protagonist is a bit of a bitch with some sort of mental illness or disability. At some point, she tells the reader how she likes to read books on her Kindle. The book ends with her happy, single, complicit in a murder, and prestigious.
Also, every single person in the book is unlikeable. Then again, it’s not outside the norm that I hate everyone adult novels have to offer. The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling, for example, had a large ensemble cast, and I hated everyone. Is this really what adults like to read?
Anyway, this post is supposed to be about Our Dream Home by Jessica Huntley in particular. My most distinguishable thought requires jumping straight to the end where the protagonist Fiona magically inherits a multi-million dollar company and smothers her husband after her son beat in his skull with a replica of Thor’s hammer (remember, this is a Jessica Huntley novel). Fiona then ties her hair back like a boss with a plan, and the book ends. What the hell is she going to do with her dead husband’s body? What is the implication? Is she going to pull a Breaking Bad and dissolve it in acid? Nothing in the book has established that. Nothing in the book established she was capable of running a multi-million dollar company competently either. Fuck it. She’s a strong, independent woman. Ridiculous.