We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer Review

Some horror fiction relies on monsters.

Some rely on violence.

Some rely on making you question what’s actually real.

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer falls firmly into that last category.

This book is creepy, unsettling, and genuinely imaginative.

The premise is incredibly simple. A couple are renovating their new house when a family shows up at the door asking if they can look around. One of them claims to have grown up there and just wants to show the place to their children.

It sounds harmless.

But very quickly, things start to feel wrong.

What begins as a slightly awkward visit slowly spirals into something much stranger and far more disturbing. The story gradually turns into a kind of doppelgänger horror where the boundaries between past and present, memory and reality, begin to blur.

At the centre of all this is Eve, and as the story unfolds, her world starts to feel increasingly unstable. Characters behave strangely, details shift, and even the history of the house itself begins to feel unreliable.

You’re constantly questioning what’s happening and whether the characters themselves really understand the situation they’re in. Locations change, stories don’t quite line up, and the tension slowly builds as everything becomes more disorientating.

Kliewer mixes the narrative with reports, articles, and fragments from conspiracy forums. These little pieces scattered throughout the book add another layer of unease and help build the feeling that something much larger might be going on behind the scenes.

It makes the whole story feel more real, but also more unsettling.

By the time everything begins to come together, the sense of paranoia and confusion is almost overwhelming.

It’s the kind of horror that gets under your skin rather than relying purely on shock or gore.

And that’s what makes it so effective.

I’ve read a lot of horror over the past few years, but this is easily one of the most imaginative examples I’ve come across in a long time.

It’s strange, clever, and deeply unsettling in exactly the way good horror should be.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐