The Uninvited by Liz Jensen

The Uninvited

by Liz Jensen

A seven-year-old girl puts a nail-gun to her grandmother's neck and fires. An isolated incident, say the experts. The experts are wrong. Across the world, children are killing their families. Is violence contagious?

As chilling murders by children grip the country, anthropologist Hesketh Lock has his own mystery to solve: a bizarre scandal in the Taiwan timber industry. Hesketh has never been good at relationships: Asperger's Syndrome has seen to that. But he does have a talent for spotting behavioural patterns, and an outsider's fascination with group dynamics.

Nothing obvious connects Hesketh's Southeast Asian case with the atrocities back home. Or with the increasingly odd behaviour of his beloved step-son, Freddy. But when Hesketh's Taiwan contact dies shockingly and more acts of sabotage and child violence sweep the globe, he is forced to acknowledge possibilities that defy the rational principles on which he has staked his life, his career and, most devastatingly of all, his role as a father.

Part psychological thriller, part dystopian nightmare, The Uninvited is a powerful and viscerally unsettling portrait of apocalypse in embryo.

Reviewed by layawaydragon on

3 of 5 stars

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I’ve never read a Liz Jensen novel before. I got it for free but don’t remember where. Probably from a friend handing off books rather than a giveaway since it’s not marked and isn’t an ARC. I enjoyed it but because of the ending, I’m not sure if I’ll read another of Jensen’s work. (I just browsed them and didn’t add any to my To-Read list. They all sound like variations on the same theme and non-interesting.)

I wouldn’t call it dystopian as a genre, though it’s definitely not pleasant. I’d class it as apocalyptic—with paranormal aspects and a twist. It’s setup and flows like a psychological mystery and reads likes literary fiction. I also wouldn’t class it as horror. It’s has some violent, unsettling moments but this isn’t about running from zombie children.

We explore and deal with the children as much as possible given their infliction, there just isn’t that much to do with them as they are.

I really liked Lock’s perspective and found him to be such a great character. He is stereotypically distant and has difficultly in social situations. But he does have emotions, he feels and expresses them differently.

The writing is superb as well. It was entertaining and kept me hooked throughout the quick read. It was an interesting and unique twist for how The Uninvited manifest to wreck shit.

However, I really hated the ending. So we can piece together who The Uninvited are, why they are here and what they are doing. I can’t really expect the history of the world for the spoon-fed version.

It didn’t feel like a conclusion. The book just stopped. Lock’s story isn’t over. Freddy’s story isn’t over. What happens to the children, do they stay that way? And we have no idea WTF is going to happen next in the world.

Lock’s had his guesses earlier but that doesn’t mean he’s right. He certainly didn’t get everything right during the story. Others have called this a “French ending”, but as I don’t have much exposure I can’t say if that’s accurate. Though it does met the stereotype of that and Literary fiction. It wasn’t satisfying. I was disappointed and unfulfilled.

It wasn’t thought provoking in the traditional sense, unless you count “Gods-fucking-damnit, what next?!?!” I wasn’t contemplating how the world got there and blah, blah, blah. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s fucking obvious. And there’s no way this scenario (with the children at least) is going to play out IRL, which just leaves wondering how to change our world now. I don’t know about ya’ll but that’s nothing new to me. That line of thinking just makes me feel depressed and impotent.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 12 March, 2016: Finished reading
  • 12 March, 2016: Reviewed