Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

Horror/Paranormal/Mystery/Thriller

387 Pages

Published by FlatIron Books (10th May 2022)

My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Mallory Quinn has just gotten out of rehab, she’s leaving her halfway house, and she’s even got a job lined up. Things are looking up. After securing the job as a live-in nanny to a young boy named Teddy, Mallory begins to settle into the stability of normal life. She has her own living space, she can go out for her nightly runs, and she’s bonded so well with Teddy. Life is swell. Teddy likes to draw, as most children do, pictures of balloons, rabbits and trees; then there’s his new picture, one of a man, dragging the lifeless body of a woman through the forest. As Teddy’s drawings become more advanced, turning from stick figures into realistic portraits, that of which he couldn’t possibly do, Mallory starts to wonder whether these drawings hold the answers to a long unanswered mystery. Knowing how crazy it all sounds, she conducts her investigation in secret, her search becoming more and more frantic as she races to save Teddy from what she believes is a grim fate.

I had this on my TBR list pretty much as soon as I came across it on bookstagram. The cover caught my eye, as they always seem to do, but then the blurb caught my attention even more. As you all know, my horror kick has been in full swing for over a year now, so I was keen as mustard for this book to be on its way to me. I didn’t realise when I purchased it from Dymocks last December that I’d purchased the preorder for the paperback, so alas, I was waiting a while for it to arrive on my doorstep. When it did however, I moved that baby up my to be read list quicker than you can draw a stick figure.

The story opens with a high Mallory attending some university’s science experiment, one which she can’t even be sure actually happened, though she feels in her bones that it really did. Straight away the foundation has been set for a bit of an unreliable narrator, which I always enjoy when it’s done well. Even though at the beginning of the book, Mallory is high, and we know this, and through the main part of the book, she’s not, you still have that niggling question in the back of your mind as to whether you can entirely trust what she thinks that she’s seen/heard/experienced. I liked to give Mallory the benefit of the doubt, I really liked her, and I could really empathise with her just trying to get her life back on track and get moving with her dreams and her ambitions. She’s such a well written character and is one that you can really get behind and cheer on from the sidelines. Even when she was making less than wise decisions – the little white lies told here and there for example – I still didn’t hate her. I was annoyed and found myself sitting there going “why Mallory, just tell the truth, you don’t need to hide what you’ve been through or your struggles” but then I sat back and thought about it. I’ve never used hard drugs, and I’ve never been addicted to them or really anything else, so I couldn’t possibly know the shame that some would feel over their struggles with addiction and the reason behind the WHY of them taking that substance up to begin with. I have not been in a situation where I would know what it felt like to carry that shame with you, day in and day out, and not just the shame one might feel from being addicted to substances in the first place, but the shame of what you may have done under the influence of said substances, or the shame behind what you might have done in order to obtain them. So while Mallory’s little white lies seemed pointless to me, and even to her as she describes in the narrative, I can see how one might prefer to make those little white lies rather than have to tell the well dressed, well mannered, man who’s looking at you like an actual human who matters, rather than some junkie rat that should be shut away from the light never to be seen again (not my views, but I can see that there would be some people out there who WOULD have these views). You don’t want them to look at you with pity, you don’t want them to feel disgusted that they’re talking to you, have shown interest in you, so in not as so many words, I can understand the need to feel like she had to lie in order to save face. As she was so used to being judged, why wouldn’t these people judge her too?

The story was a riveting one. In a time where I have been struggling to read books at the pace that I used to up to early last year, I read this book in four days. It was that engaging and an absolute page turner for me, so I was even more excited about it because it allowed me to feel like I still had it. That I hadn’t lost my gusto for reading and finishing books and moving on to the next one that caught my in no time at all. The story kept me guessing and I didn’t have any of the main parts picked out at all. That’s another reason for my high rating, it’s very hard for a book to surprise me anymore, I’ve read a lot, so when a book manages to surprise me and keep me guessing right up to the reveals, it automatically gets a higher rating. While I had inklings that may have been in the same vicinity, I never outright guessed it, so well done Rekulak.

The atmosphere that Rekulak created in this book was fantastic. I found myself dreading nightfall in the story because he really brought the creep factor in spades. Even though the cottage definitely felt homely, in a way it also felt a little claustrophobic, the atmosphere of the story had a strange feeling of being trapped, and I’m not sure if it’s because Mallory is essentially in a place where she doesn’t have anywhere else to go if things go south. Her sponsor and good friend is off on a much-deserved vacation and she doesn’t want to disappoint him, so while she does feel that she needs to help and protect Teddy, she also doesn’t want to do anything to mess this chance up, so that feeling of trapped and of claustrophobia becomes real. Her finding the drawings which were actually shown in the copy of the book that I had, I’m assuming it was published from word go with those, they added another level of creep to the story for sure. Some of the pictures were downright eerie, and I loved that we got to see them for ourselves. It really added just an extra bit of something something to it.

I enjoyed the characters, though Teddy’s father gave me weird vibes from the get-go, so I wasn’t the biggest fan of his, and I feel like it just got worse and worse as the story progressed. I enjoyed the character of Teddy’s mother; she was such a complex character and I loved getting to unravel her as the story progressed. The lawn guy and sort of neighbour felt like the one beacon of shining light and hope in the story for me. Each time he was around I instantly felt better. It really felt like I was in Mallory’s shoes for this story, and that is just brilliant. Mallory’s character was so complex, and I loved that we got a real character that was so flawed and just trying to do her damn best with the lot she was given. Getting to see her grow and become stronger and more caring as the story moved along was wonderful, and I honestly think about her a lot. Teddy was a wonderful character and I just wanted to hug him. Especially after everything is said and done. I had a bit of a tear in my eye at the ending, the interactions between Teddy and Mallory were so sweet and wholesome, for the most part anyway.

All in all, this was an amazing story that really hit me like a breath of fresh air. It kept me guessing and entertained without feeling tedious. The atmosphere was palpable, and the writing made me feel like I was walking in Mallory’s shoes. Being able to be dropped right into a story can really make a huge difference. The creep factor was real with this one, and I still get chills when I think of certain scenes. They hype was real for me with this one, and I love that it was!

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