The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**4.5-stars**
Follow the rites…
The Caretaker is one of those books that I’m blessed enough to get a chance to read early, and then I can’t wait for everyone else to read because I need to talk about it!
This story captured my full attention and did not let up the entire way through. I read it in a day and it left me with A LOT to think about. I was doing mental gymnastics trying to keep up with everything Kliewer was throwing at me, and honestly, it was exhilarating.
Macy Mullins, our MC, is a young woman a bit down on her luck, who needs to scramble to support not only herself, but her little sister, Jemma. After a string of failed job interviews, Macy is still on the hunt when an enticing ad on Craig’s List catches her eye:
EXCITING OPPORTUNITY:
Caretaker urgently needed. Three days of work. Competitive pay. Serious applicants ONLY.
Macy applies and ends up securing an interview. She meets with the woman who she would be working for, and although it’s an unusual meeting, to say the least, Macy can’t afford to be picky.
As an outside observer, I may have been screaming at Macy to not agree to take the job, but I also can’t pay Macy’s bills, so she does what she has to do and she accepts.
It’s only 3-days work, where she’ll have to stay at the woman’s house in the wilderness of Oregon and take care of her house. How bad could it possibly get?
Y’all, it can get bad. I think we all know this. Even Macy probably knew this, but like I said, she really didn’t have much of a choice. The first thing that really captured me about this book was how realistic and well-developed Macy was as a protagonist.
While I’ve never experienced some of the things that Macy had been through, I couldn’t help by feel connected to her struggles. I had such empathy for her while she was just working through her own thoughts.
I also felt like I was going on this journey with her. The house, the property, the weirdness of the whole circumstance was seeping off the page and into my brain. It felt tactile to me. I was feeling it all; transported.
The synopsis describes this as a waking nightmare, and I can’t think of a better way to put it. There were scenes that played into some of my own fears and left me absolutely chilled to the bone and my blood pumping.
I need to get a physical copy, because I’ll be reading it again. It’s twisted, layered and I would love to take more time with it. Now that I know the end, I feel I could pick up more of the smaller pieces I may have missed on this first go.
Upon completion, I sat and just stared at the wall for a good 4-to-5 minutes. Yes, that’s a good thing. If this doesn’t leave you with an existential crisis, I’m not sure what will.
At this end of the day, I found this wildly-entertaining. It’s highly-consummable, gripping and disturbing. It’s going to stick in my mind for a long, long time.
Thank you to the publisher, Atria, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is the first I’ve read from this author, but you better believe I’ll be picking up more.
