You Did Nothing Wrong by C.G. Drews Review

A relentless, horror-inducing psychological suspense for fans of The Push and Baby Teeth by New York Times bestselling author CG Drews.

Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden-retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect.
 

Then Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls. He says their renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it–something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son?
 

Then the one secret Elodie has been hiding is revealed, and no one is safe anymore.
 

A pulse-pounding, clever take on the haunted house novel, You Did Nothing Wrong examines the complexities of motherhood and the twisted bonds of family as it races to its shocking ending.

This review is based on a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by St. Martin’s Press.

Love, guilt, judgement, and paranoia, all within the four walls that may or may not be alive and angry, You Did Nothing Wrong is psychological thriller and explores Elodie’s twisted descent into madness. C.G. Drews’s adult novel debut, rather than simply serving as a straightforward haunted house narrative, this book instead is a horror story of an entirely different monster. Compared to Drews’s past books that had a more paranormal and fantasy angle to their stories, You Did Nothing Wrong instead plays off the monsters in our head and the horrifying ways love and devotion can spiral into something dark and unrecognizable. While featuring Drews’s signature macabre metaphors and stylistic prose, this book is very different from past YA books for those that enjoyed their past books.

Marketed as a pulse-pounding and clever take on the haunted house novel, I went into this book expecting something along the lines of Drews’s past books that mixed elements of paranormal horror with fantasy flair. As a strong cautionary disclaimer upfront, You Did Nothing Wrong is very different and was not at all what I was expecting. While the book prominently features tense and unsettling experiences in a decrepit house, I was surprised that the book read much more like a domestic thriller rather than a paranormal horror novel. Following a young family of Elodie, her son Jude, and recent husband Bren, the story follows her anxious and disturbing fall into something unrecognizable. Buried secrets from Elodie and Bren’s past are slowly revealed and what appears to be a youthful family with their best years to come is truly anything but.

For those that are familiar with Drews’s previous books, You Did Nothing Wrong continues their trend of featuring characters that have survived trauma and the lasting effects it’s caused on their outlook on life. Don’t Let the Forest In was one of my favorite books that I read earlier this year and this novel features a similar yet distinctively different portrayal of losing one’s mind and grip on reality. As an adult-focused story, this one is heavily based around motherhood, family bonds, and perceived outside judgement. Elodie is a young mother with a six-year-old son who is autistic who struggles with being the parent she wants to be vs what she’s actually able to do. While twisted, ugly, and often quite shocking, Drews’s portrayal of parental overkill and misguided care is absolutely striking. As Elodie’s growing concerns for Jude’s well-being spiral into child abuse territory to an outside observer, so too does her internal justification and character logic, regardless of how ill-placed it can be. The juxtaposition between her intent against her actions are often extreme in the worst way possible but so effectively conceptualized, Drews masterfully navigating the touchy subjects of how mental health can affect one’s perception of reality once again.

Besides the horrifying parental treatment of Jude that earns the book’s “horror” classification, other interesting themes covered in the story include the grim cycle of abuse and domestic manipulation. While not necessarily gaslighting each other, their conscious manipulation of each other plays out through their power struggle of not only the household and family, but also of Jude’s love and attachment. While I have a very thick skin and am more than happy to review material that can be difficult to read, the treatment, control, and manipulation of Jude is a topic that I can see many readers finding disturbing and upsetting; the strong emotional reactions an indicator of how effective the writing is. As the story reaches its climax, the cycle of abuse also becomes a strong narrative theme. To say more gives away spoilers, but Elodie (and to a lesser extent Bren) is shown to have been neglected and abused, which feels like it set her on the unhealthy and destructive path she’s on. Tactfully avoiding victim blaming as well as trying to justify her actions, the book’s lengthy hundred-page final chapter is gripping in content, a well-crafted series of unfortunate events towards a tragic conclusion (on brand for Drews) of which Elodie initially did nothing wrong.

While the plotting of the book is dramatic and highly effective at what’s it’s trying to do, I personally had a few notable issues when reading this book that heavily affected the reading experience for me. While the beginning of the story is meant to show a stressed, but otherwise content young family, I felt that Elodie’s neurotic tendencies were too obvious far too early in the story. The way her character voice, intent judgement, and questionable parenting approaches are portrayed is a bit heavy-handed, to the point that perceptive readers will likely turn on Elodie far too early in the story. Additionally, the signs of how toxic all the relationships are in this family as well as Elodie and Bren’s countless red flags almost feel like a misjudgment of the reader’s insight and intuition. While this book is obviously one that features heavily flawed characters, I believe that the reader needs to sympathize with Elodie and Bren to a certain extent in order for the book’s later plot twists and reveals to properly land. Unfortunately, I found Elodie insufferable from the very beginning of the book which had the odd consequence of me getting schadenfreude at her numerous mistakes and moments of misery. While the reader is likely meant have a negative opinion of her, I really don’t think this was the takeaway impression intended. While conceptually and tonally very different from this book, Matt Haig’s The Possession of Mr Cave is another book that tackles misguided and horrifying parental perceptions. I found You Did Nothing Wrong covers a similar overall narrative, but an example of what can happen when a book featuring an unlikable and unreliable narrator misjudges the reader’s perception of them. By the time I finished the book, I wasn’t really sure of what it was trying to accomplish.

While I also attempt to read and write reviews as objectively as possible, particularly for ARC reviews, I cannot deny that the book’s narrative content was simply not for me. Part of that is on me for expecting this book to be similar to Don’t Let the Forest In or Hazelthorn except with adult characters or more intense and mature themes. In general, I do not typically enjoy domestic thrillers, especially stories involving familial drama and strained relationships. While the synopsis isn’t technically wrong and does describe what happens in the story, I think it’s a big disservice to potential readers as well as the book itself for not making the prominent parental focus more obvious. While I found the horrifying elements of twisted parental care fascinating to read, I struggled substantially with the book’s first two hundred pages revolving around the difficulties of motherhood, outside judgement, and domestic conflict; motherhood is a topic that will never resonate with me but the execution of this book’s narrative didn’t help the situation. Additionally, while the story has some shocking developments on paper, I also saw nearly all of them from a mile away and could guess almost the entire plot of the book which was a letdown. I was really hoping that I had mistakenly overthought what was happening and that the final chapter would reverse everything on its head given Elodie’s mental state, and I was disappointed that the reality of what was happening was as simple as it seemed. Drews’s confident character work and sophisticated writing style helped keep me going, but even the prose felt less effective and appropriate compared to their past novels. Likely a choice based on the character’s personality, but Drews’s beautiful metaphors and commentary felt sporadically applied, their outstanding philosophical conclusions to each chapter in past books either missing or less strong here, and the tone kept going back and forth between Drews expected poetic lyricism vs merely serviceable narration typical for domestic thriller novels. I also felt like the eerie house could’ve been used more extensively or with more variety, uncharacteristically growing repetitive compared to what I know Drews can do.

Twisted, unsettling, upsetting but all by purposeful design, You Did Nothing Wrong is a well-written and psychological horror and domestic thriller novel. Capturing the difficult and inseparable bond between a mother and her children warped through by personal demons and tragic circumstances, this book is intense. Objectively speaking it’s a great book but subjectively, this wasn’t really the book I thought I was signing up for nor was I the right reader for it; a difficult read but not because of the uncomfortable content. For those that enjoy dark domestic and familial drama stories exploring the horrors of the mind and misguided love, this is an excellent book and one that will leave a lasting impression. However, for those looking for a story in a similar vein as Don’t Let the Forest In or Hazelthorn, I’d recommend waiting for Drews’s next gothic YA release Scorpion Deep via Feiwel & Friends instead of this one.