Table Of Content
In the past, Aubrey tells Maya that Frank gave her a book on mesmerism. (Well that is another BIG CLUE.) Frank shows up and wants to talk. Maya goes to get her phone to call the police and Aubrey falls over dead. But Frank describes the cabin and then it IS real and Maya is there. He gives her a key (to the cabin?) Then she’s back outside and all groggy and confused. Googling in the present, Maya finds a woman named Ruby Garza, who died in Hood River (where Frank was from) ten years ago in a fire.
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That said, I was not a fan of a woman lead character, once again, harboring alcohol and drug abuse. I’m extremely tired of this plot device in thrillers. A big component is that Maya has gaps in her memories of her time with Frank and what happened with Aubrey. So with that, she becomes somewhat of an unreliable narrator and the reader has to decide if what Maya is relying is actually the truth. The House in the Pines is set in Pittsfield, the same place where Ana Reyes wrote her first story at eleven years old about a strange house in the woods.
What’s the Story About
When Maya wakes up, she finds a video on social media of a woman dropping dead in a diner in Maya’s hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Maya is shocked to recognize him as Frank, the older guy Maya was involved with in high school. With the voice recording as proof, Maya convinces the police of Frank’s guilt.
About the Author
In the past (?) or maybe it’s the present (?) Maya borrows her Mom’s car and sneaks out to Frank’s cabin at night. But she finds the cabin in ruins and Frank camping there. In the past, Maya goes to look for Frank at his parent’s house. His father is vague about where Frank is and Maya asks if he is at the cabin. Frank brought her there and said she was the only one he ever brought there.
Seeking answers, she heads to her Berkshire hometown to relive that fateful summer — the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey. To save herself, Maya must understand a story written before she was born but time keeps running out and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin. However, her past returns when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer to finally solve the mystery of what happened to Aubrey.
Maya tells Dan she needs to go back to her hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and talk to people in the diner where Christina died. Like all heroines in thrillers who go back to their hometowns to solve a years-old small town murder, Maya is inexorably drawn into danger. Sometimes the prose felt a little sloppy and info dump-y, almost like the story had too much author intrusion. The author inserted herself into the story a lot, telling readers something rather than showing, especially when it had to do with Maya’s family history.
Paleo Pines Preview - Life Sim Finds A Way - TheGamer
Paleo Pines Preview - Life Sim Finds A Way.
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Book Review: The House in the Pines
Steven says that Christina left him a note saying she was going to go live with Frank in his cabin. Maya realizes the title of her dad’s book comes from a religious poem, the Hymn of the Pearl. In the past, Frank takes Maya to his house in the pines. Someone calls Frank “Gary.” Maya finds a mixtape made for Frank by someone named Ruby.
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"I started Pretty in the Pines while I was applying to dental schools," she says. "I thought I wanted to be a dentist, but after being rejected from a few schools the first time around, I started to realize that I was in it for the wrong reasons." All in all, I think this is a good and entertaining thriller. There are uneven parts but it really does try to cover many different topics from friendships, mother/daughter relationships, jealousy, addiction and more. I understand what the author was trying to convey but it just feels repetitive at this point.
Book Club Discussion Questions for The House in the Pines
This is a pet peeve of mine—it intrudes on the narrative and jolts the reader out of the story. Like that maybe her mom was in on it or was drugging her to keep her in hypnosis or something. I wish I had not wasted my time reading it and I am surprised it was on a popular bookclub reading list.
Then “Girl Dies on Camera” appears on social media. In it, a young woman pitches over dead at a table in a diner in Maya’s hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. As Maya sees to her horror, the woman was with Frank Bellamy, an older man/weirdo she dated that terrible senior summer. Frank was present when her best friend, Aubrey West, died the same way as the woman in the video, with no cause ever determined. Maya’s always thought Frank had something to do with it. Now she's sure and takes a trip home to see what she can find out.
She thought that Frank was a killer from the beginning and never changed her mind. The only thing that changed was that other people believed her. Yes, Aubrey and Christina are possibly victims of Frank, but Maya is his main victim.
I thought the author balanced both timelines well and it generally flowed nicely. But coping with her secret addiction and Klonopin withdrawal makes it difficult to trust her own mind. Even so, she dives headfirst into the trauma she tried to push away for so long, and she finally faces Frank—the strange boy with the cabin deep in the woods . I think this book could have been so interesting as a sort of magical realism/horror/trauma book but it never got there.
In an interview, Ana Reyes speaks to the importance of Maya’s father’s half-finished book and how it points to the dangers surrounding her. The idea of confronting your past—especially when it’s a past you can’t clearly see or remember—is an interesting catalyst for a story. I also loved the dark fairy tale vibes throughout the book. Maya met Frank at the library one day while researching her father’s manuscript. At first, Maya didn’t think much about the hours of missing time she experiences while out with Frank. The relationship was exciting—Frank would never tell her what they’d be doing or where they were going, leaving it all as a surprise.
