Book Review: You Did Nothing Wrong by CG Drews

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"There is a messiness to love, a hysteria that veers too close to madness. It is looking at someone and being unable to breathe, being reduced to a wretched, obsessive creature who wants to latch onto the other like a carnivorous leech.”

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Single mom Elodie has walked into a fairytale. Her new husband, Bren, is handsome and attentive, and he has swept her off her feet and out of her former life in Australia along with her autistic, six-year-old son, Jude. They’re installed in his decaying Farrows, Virginia, family home, which he plans to restore to its prior glory so they — and the baby on the way — can live a perfect, happy life. But all isn’t as it seems: Elodie has deep-seated secrets, and Jude claims he can hear strange and terrifying things in the walls, including voices that tell him their refurbishments are hurting the house. Is something amiss with the old Victorian, or with Elodie’s son? And what, exactly, is Elodie hiding?

You Did Nothing Wrong is a ravenous assault on the senses. The nerve-shredding narrative reads like a malignant fever dream, a pot of water gradually heating to a boil. An intrusive, visceral barrage equal parts exasperating and infuriating, oppressive and depressing, overwhelming and exhausting, nightmarish and suffocating where the line between what’s real and imagined is murky at best. Elodie's thought and emotion spirals are extreme, hellish, deeply uncomfortable, and riddled with irrational jealousy and manic desperation. She festers in a merciless, isolated sea of vindictive, distorted thoughts, the intensity of which is draining and harrowing, as are Jude’s unrelenting physical and emotional meltdowns. At 22 and 23, she and Bren are still in the honeymoon period, effectively playing at adulthood. Everything is picturesque on the outside, rank and monstrous on the inside. Elodie is so fearful, overburdened, and figuratively starved, it’s unbearable. Is she dangerous, or merely a displaced mother trying to love, protect, and manage her son?

The structure is pristine, coalescing in a shocking yet satisfying way, taking place mostly in the present day interspersed with occasional flashbacks, the entire storyline razor sharp and taut as a garrote. It’s a noxious and haunting account of second chances, appalling realities, and the hell of living inside your head, trapped in a warped web of ingrained fears. Both setting and atmosphere are cluttered and claustrophobic, Elodie’s state of hypervigilance and constant paranoia incessant and debilitating. Is she losing her mind, and is she the problem, or is Jude? Bren? The house?

It’s a twisted, menacing, lush, grisly, and insatiable story of toxic relationships and traumatic bonds, mental illness and perceived judgment, blood and bone, violence and gore that’s beautiful yet rotten to the core. A lurid and scathing examination of tragedy, trauma, grief, and denial; rage, resentment, regret, and self-loathing; obsession, dependency, suspicion, and coercion; lies, neglect, control, and worship; masking, veneers, games, and regression; defiance, dreams, avoidance, and destruction; ecstasy, hypocrisy, vanity, and delusion; threats, urges, mistakes, and vows; and dread, hallucinations, insanity, and decay. A fierce whirlwind of a domestic horror/suspense novel, a distinctive spin on the haunted house, and an awe-inspiring exercise in chaos and dread!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an eARC of this forthcoming title for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

♥Amanda

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