On the heels of reading You Shouldn’t Have Come Here,
I decided to check out other titles by the author. I couldn’t resist the cool VHS
tape cover of Home Is Where the Bodies Are and the premise sounded
promising. But, as the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by
its cover.
Instead of a suspense-thriller like the cover suggests, this story is bogged down by dysfunctional family drama as three thirty-something siblings gather following the passing of their mother only to discover that their family mementos include home videos of a dead body, a scene which their parents appear complicit in. The opening chapters of the mother dying are depressing, and the rest is a lot of sibling resentment and squabbles. The adult children do not solve the mystery; they just stumble through it. There are flawed characters and then there’s just face in your palm characters and these fall in the latter category—especially the parents. By the end, they were reprehensible.
Speaking of the recently departed mother, her chapters were particularly
cringey to get through. The attempts to paint a picture of 1999 was not only blatantly
forced but led to awkward narration that didn’t resemble how a person would
talk or think in the moment. Not to mention some of the cultural references were
off. It was painfully clear this was not written by a Gen Xer who knew the
decade firsthand, but by someone younger trying to pretend like they did.
For the record, people weren’t walking around in 1999
describing what other people were wearing while also pointing out technology (by
brand name to boot) that coincidentally was going to be obsolete in twenty
years. And moms sure weren’t standing around taking selfies with their bestie
neighbor because they would have known those doubles they were promising to get
would be a waste of film processing since cameras of that decade were not
designed to be used that way and thus, aside from a lucky shot, it didn’t turn
out. Oh and teenagers weren’t knocking on doors asking for someone to come out
and play. (Not ‘hang out’ or ‘go do something’, or even ‘play [insert sport]’ but
plain old childlike “play” as if they were six.)
To say the book could be researched better is a bit of an
understatement especially when you also factor in the inaccuracies with
everything from safety deposit boxes to the inheritance process.
All in all, while the plot had potential, it fails in
execution. The mood lacks suspense and
thrill. The characters don't exactly come across as people you can really root for. And the ending message of forgiveness felt like it belonged more in
a hokey but misogynist Sunday church sermon than a supposed thriller novel with
a broken and bloody VHS tape cover.
It would be like seeking forgiveness for Jason Voorhees. 😱
