A promising debut from newcomer Ana Reyes
Review by Maria Antokas
Reese’s Book Club has entered the chat… and I have questions. The House in the Pines is a solid debut, don’t get me wrong – but this pick feels a little… generous. We open with Maya, a high schooler having fuzzy, almost hallucinatory visions of (shocking) a house in the pines while falling under the spell of a guy named Frank, who immediately gives off “this will not end well” energy. Fast forward to present-day Boston: Maya is now a college grad working at a garden center, juggling sobriety, unresolved trauma, and a fiancé, Dan, who is objectively too good for this situation. And Maya? Not exactly winning any personality awards. She’s prickly with her mom, secretive with Dan, awkward-to-rude with his parents, and still orbiting the emotional crater left by her best friend Aubrey, who she watched drop dead in front of Frank seven years earlier.
The structure leans heavily on flashbacks, bouncing between timelines as Maya tries to make sense of what happened to Aubrey – especially after a conveniently viral video shows another woman dropping dead in front of Frank in the present day. Same setup, same eerie vibe. Naturally, Maya decides it’s time to play detective and finally pin this on Frank. The problem? The timeline jumps can get messy, and there were moments I had to pause and ask, “Wait—what year are we in and who is alive?” Add in a side thread about Maya’s father, a journalist killed by guerrillas in Guatemala while writing a mysterious book that may or may not be sending messages from beyond the grave, and things start to feel… ambitious. Interesting, but not always fully connected.
That said, it is twisty. It is compelling. And I absolutely kept reading because I needed to know what Frank’s deal was and why women keep falling for him like it’s a personality trait. This is the kind of book you pick up for a flight. Its easy to get into, just intriguing enough to keep you hooked, and not so dense that you need to diagram it midair. Worth the read? Yes. Life-changing Reese-level pick? I’m raising a very polite side-eye.
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