Time to Read: 6 hours
Review
I went into Hidden Pictures expecting creepy kid drawings, ghosts, and hopefully the kind of story that would have me questioning every noise in my house after dark. And to be fair, the drawings absolutely delivered on the creepy factor. The rest of the book? I have some thoughts.
Mallory is a recovering addict who takes a job as a nanny for five-year-old Teddy, a sweet kid who loves to draw. His pictures start out innocent enough, until they don’t. As the drawings become increasingly disturbing, Mallory starts questioning what exactly is happening in the seemingly perfect home she’s found herself in. It’s a great setup. Unfortunately, there were times when I felt like I had to dig through a lot of unnecessary detail to actually get to it.
What Worked
The illustrations were easily my favorite part of the book. Watching Teddy’s drawings become progressively more disturbing added something that prose alone couldn’t have accomplished. Every time I came across another picture, I stopped to actually study it, looking for clues and wondering what the hell this kid was going to draw next.
The mystery also kept me reading. I had plenty of theories along the way, and while I picked up on a few things, I definitely didn’t have everything figured out. There was enough of a surprise in the payoff that I was ultimately satisfied with where the mystery went. Once the story really got moving, I was much more invested. I finished the book in about four days because I genuinely wanted answers.
What Didn’t Work
My biggest issue was the amount of description. There were so many little details that seemed to get far more page time than they needed. Pristine New Balance sneakers. An immaculate garden that we hear about more than once. I get it. The man has a nice garden.
There were points where I found myself pushing through the narration because I just wanted to get back to the dialogue and find out what was happening. Some description obviously helps establish a character or setting, but when I’m noticing how often I’m waiting for the story to start moving again, it’s probably too much.
The other disappointment was the horror itself. For a book called Hidden Pictures with increasingly disturbing children’s drawings at the center of it, I expected this to scare me more than it did. The drawings created a genuinely creepy atmosphere, but I don’t think I was actually scared at any point.
As the story progressed, it started feeling much more like a mystery or whodunnit than the horror novel I thought I was getting. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, and the mystery was actually what kept me turning pages, but I wanted the creepy atmosphere from the beginning to dig its claws in a little deeper.
I also wasn’t completely sold on how the supernatural and psychological elements ultimately came together. Without spoiling anything, I think I would have preferred a different explanation for some of what happens. The payoff to the mystery worked better for me than the payoff to the horror.
Who This Book Is For
If you like mysteries with a supernatural edge, creepy illustrations, suspicious characters, and stories that keep you throwing theories at the wall until something sticks, there’s a lot here to enjoy. If you’re picking this up because you want straight-up horror that will have you afraid to turn the lights off afterward, though, I’d temper those expectations. For me, this ultimately felt much more like a whodunnit with horror elements than something genuinely frightening.
Final Thoughts
I ended up enjoying Hidden Pictures more than I thought I would during the first half. The mystery kept me curious, I didn’t predict everything that was coming, and the illustrations were easily the standout. But the excessive description dragged down the pacing, and the horror side never quite delivered the way I hoped it would.
This definitely wasn’t the kind of horror that had me lying awake afterward wondering whether the scratching in the hallway was a ghost or just one of my twelve cats zooming around the living room.
Leave a Reply