Synopsis:
The Martins need a new home for their growing family. For Alison, Nathan, daughter Dru, and foster child Lailah, it’s love at first sight when they see the house in Tumbling Hills. It even has a cozy attic, which is great for Lailah: she needs a quiet place to be alone when her intrusive thoughts creep in.
(crack an egg into the coffee machine)
The family gets settled. The house is perfect, and so is the timing – Lailah’s adoption will soon be finalized. But as the date approaches, her intrusive thoughts become worse, and bad things start to happen. Lailah fears she’s losing control.
(push your sister down the stairs)
The family is on edge, pointing fingers and taking sides. And even though they love each other very much, the cracks begin to show. Something has got to give.
(burn them alive in their beds)
Review:
Hello again dear reader or listener, I return after a small reviewing hiatus as I’ve been cajoled – see half dragged – back from several weeks (ok, fine, months) of a total inability to finish any book I started, by a September release that will meet all of your horror needs ahead of spooky season.
So, with a quick thank you to the author for sending me an eARC and my usual promise to you, dear reader, that I’m being honest in my ravings, allow me to tell you why Worry Box by Chris Panatier belongs on your shelves.
I can now say I’ve read most of Panatier’s work (still have a couple to catch up on but they’re definitely on the horizon) and can confidently claim this as my favorite of his wordsmithing. Truly, in my first ever review of his work I said that even though that particular book had not fully been to my liking near the end, I found the tact and grace of his handling of very important themes masterful and his evocative writing worthy of note so I would keep reading him. Three excellent books later including this one, I’m very pleased to say that Worry Box is Panatier at the very top of his game and at his most well-crafted to date. So far that is, as he doesn’t show signs of stopping, and I hope for all of us that he never does!
The only reason Worry Box was a two sittings read was that I started it late at night and hearing the early birds start to sing at 4:30 am really does remind you that you had things to do that morning. And yet I had no regrets, because I didn’t need sleep, I needed answers and the inexorable growing dread and anxiety to come to an end. Not only is this book an exceptionally fresh take on the haunted house but it takes all of your certainties and feelings of safety away. It doesn’t simply play on the idea that bad things happen to good people, it instead crawls under your skin with the terrible realization that good intentions can go horrifically wrong and there is nothing you can do about it but watch it all unfold helplessly and suddenly short of breath.
The Martins are a good family, a healthy one, helmed by two emotionally mature adults who have dealt with their past demons and are determined to help their kids face their own in the safest way possible. There is acceptance and communication with boundaries, true nurture, fun, and care.
Until there isn’t.
You root for all of them to succeed and be happy because you get all of their points of view, yes, but also because Panatier takes the time to actually invite the reader to be a part of this happy family that has found the perfect new home, whose rooms are always the right temperature. Never mind the dining room that still smells just a little off. You are there with them, comfortable in their warmth and relaxed in their presence.
Until you are not.
If up until a certain point you felt a part of this family and story, you find yourself slowly being inched out of the house and, before you’ve fully realized it, you are now locked outside looking in unable to warn them as all of that previous warmth starts to go chillingly cold. Things start going wrong and unravel, trust starts to fade, characters who you thought wouldn’t possibly crack under pressure slowly and dreadfully reach their breaking point. And that is perhaps the scariest and most unsettling part of this book. You can do everything right, but if the right (or wrong in this case) amount of things start chipping away at you, even you are vulnerable.
Panatier not only strikes the perfect balance between delightfully frustrating and utter uncertainty but he weaves his story and narrators in such a deliciously evil manner that he well and truly makes it impossible for you to know who to trust. Is one narrator being truthful compared to another, are they blocking out or forgetting things that they are responsible of, or is it something or someone else entirely? Who is unreliable and who isn’t?
It was maddening and ominous in the best of ways and I couldn’t get enough while simultaneously suffering in silence, wishing for it to end, willing my eyes to Just. Read. Faster! I already mentioned feeling short of breath but I found myself literally sweating and eventually even holding my breath entirely for a considerable section of the final act. If that doesn’t tell you how much of an impact an author’s words can have on a person! Cause there’s invested and then there’s completely immersed in what you’re reading that you completely forget you’re sat somewhere comfortable and safe and start feeling literal fight or flight within your own body.
Moreover, I mentioned tact and grace and that is in no short amount here as well when Panatier explores topics of parental abuse, intrusive thoughts (the real ones, not the internet’s teehee-I-got-a-funky-outfit-today variety), post-partum, and mental health. His characters are so well developed and fleshed out in ways that preclude any villainization. Especially when it comes to the mother of the family, lesser authors would’ve taken the easy – sometimes subconscious – route of othering her and, through their inflections and writing, allow her to become the “hysterical” and “unreasonable” character you emotionally check out from.
Or, in the same vein, when conflict of this caliber starts breaking loving couples apart and they show their red flags as it were, more often than not something on either or both sides severs the connection you originally felt for them and now, best case scenario, you just want them to go their separate ways and be done with it. Worst, you’re lowkey wishing for the offending party to die a horrible death. While understandable and often explored well, this type of dynamic breakdown has started feeling inevitable if not cliché to me personally so it was so satisfying to see Panatier did not go down that road. This is an author I’ve come to trust and knew he wouldn’t let me down and yet I was still gratified with the way he subverted trope, and my own, expectations.
To me it feels like empathy is the driving force behind this book, both narratively and thematically. What happens when there is too much or too little of it? Do we allow ourselves to be blinded by it or can we learn to discern the right course of action even when it feels callous or cruel? Also, the true empathy you can’t help but feel toward all of the characters – every single one – is what places Panatier on a class of his own for me.
Now, I’ve said a lot while not nearly enough so, in short:
Worry Box is a beautifully written and downright unrelenting narrative that will warm you and scare you in equal measure. It will make you think and ponder, it will make you understand while also giving you no answers until the very end. You will be turning the pages with one hand while peeking through your fingers of the other, afraid of what will happen next but unable to look away.
Believe me when I say, this is a must read for both seasoned fans of horror and for readers who want to give the genre a go for the first time. As for me, it has merely cemented Panatier’s spot on my shelves. I thoroughly enjoyed both his previous works, Shitshow and Daytide, for their own merits, but I believe the more grounded nature of this one truly hit home differently.
Worry Box is out through Angry Robot this September 22nd and you definitely want to preorder it!
Until next time,
Eleni A.E.
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