Home Is Where the Bodies Are is the second Jeneva Rose book I’ve ever read and honestly? It will probably be the last. I picked this up because of the amazing cover. The marketing department did an incredible job with that one because it made me completely forget that I’d already read a Jeneva Rose book and absolutely hated it. That book was You Shouldn’t Have Come Here. I genuinely thought that was one of the worst books I’ve ever read so when I realised I was reading another book by the same author it all started to make sense.

As Beth’s mother was dying, she warned her not to trust someone but died before she clarified who. Now Beth’s estranged siblings are returning home for the first time in years to help sort out the house and plan the future and for some reason she decides not to tell them of their mother’s dying words.

While going through their parents’ belongings, they discover some old VHS tapes and decide to rewatch the videos their mother lovingly made of them. Until they get to one video from 1999 that shows their father covered in blood. He claims he’s just found the body of a teenage girl and just as their parents plan to get rid of it, the video cuts out. 

Now they must decide whether to hand these horrific videos over to the police or take their mother’s dark secret to the grave with them.

One of the main issues with this is that it’s just incredibly boring. A thriller should be thrilling. This has dull characters that are so surface level that we’re told exactly how they’re thinking and feeling through their perspectives and they all still feel so uninteresting. There are 4 perspectives altogether – the three siblings (in the present) and their mother (in the past). I didn’t care for any of them but one thing I can compliment is that they all did feel quite distinct.

I’m not the biggest fan of Rose’s writing. It felt almost immature and everything felt overexplained. It’s almost like the author didn’t think the reader is clever enough to figure out what she means so we’re left with absolutely no subtext. Everything is laid out exactly and it was so frustrating to read. If you’ve written well enough then people will be able to figure out what you mean. What happened to ‘show, not tell?’

You would never actually be able to figure out what exactly happened if we weren’t given letters right at the end that explained everything. In my opinion, that’s not a good sign of a thriller. However, it’s also kind of crazy that this book was so predictable. I’m not going to spoil it but when you start reading this book it immediately becomes clear who the killer is going to be just from the way they act, the way they talk about people, just who they are as a person in general. It was so obvious that I thought it was going to be a red herring. But nope! It’s just one of the most predictable thrillers I’ve ever read in my life. 

As I said, this is the second book I’ve read by this author and it now seems clear to me that every one of her books is gonna have a boring, dry plot and anything exciting will only happen in the last 20%. It doesn’t make for a very enjoyable reading experience. 

1.5 stars.