Review: The Treehouse by B.P. Walter

     

Print Length: TBA

Publisher: Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter (July 3, 2025)

From Goodreads.com: Twenty years ago, a summer holiday ended in tragedy for the Palmer family.

No one has spoken of it since.

Until a new tv series plays out the horrifying events of that night.

As the family are forced to relive that fateful trip, is it possible that each person is hiding their own secrets, and is someone willing to do whatever it takes to keep their past firmly in the past…

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My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

DISCLAIMER #1: This book NEEDS to have trigger warnings. And while I'm not a squeamish reader, I know there are others out there who are and I pride myself in being honest in my reviews. That being said; *SPOILER ALERT* this book deals with both animal AND human sacrifices. Something that I would have liked to know before I started reading. 

Now that I've gotten that unpleasant bit out of the way, let's dive into the story shall we?

At first I was intrigued, the fact that someone else apparently knew what had happened that night caught my attention. But it quickly became clear that absolutely none of these characters were going to be someone I would root for, or even care about. Robert goes back and forth between trying to be assertive, and having to have his every move planned out for him. I understand the panic at thinking that your past has finally come back to bite him, but the way he so quickly spiraled because of it was laughable. No wonder he found himself in a potentially even bigger mess almost immediately. 

But then the mystery gets wrapped up surprisingly quickly, and then we’re thrown back to 2004 to watch how these two teenage boys ended up doing something so awful. And we stay there… for a long time. This was another thing that bothered me about this one; I wish the structure had been different, I feel as though a stronger back-and-forth between past and present would’ve kept the pacing tighter and the suspense alive. Instead, it felt like we were stuck in 2004 for what seemed like the majority of the book. And once we got back to the present day? It was a race to the finish line at a break neck speed. I feel like there was the potential for the parents secrets to be discussed a bit more, but no. They simply sat their children down and spilled the beans, and then the story moved on without giving the reader time to really digest what had been revealed. 

Also, the whole Dark Core subplot stretched credibility a bit too far for me. The idea that this creepy movement could operate in the shadows, despite sacrificing rabbits and posting it all over the internet, without the media catching on? I could practically hear the headlines writing themselves. 

In the end, I loved the concept of The Treehouse and some of its elements, but the execution just didn’t land for me the way I wanted it to. 

DISCLAIMER #2: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.