Title: Apartment 16

Author: Adam Nevill

Release date: May 21, 2010

2020 has been the year of discovering Adam Nevill. So far, I’ve read Last Days, The Ritual, The Reddening, Wyrd & Other Derelictions and his two mini-collections Before You Wake and Before You Sleep and all have been fantastic reads. While falling in love with Last Days, I made sure to pick up his back catalog so that everything was locked and loaded on my Kindle so I could dive in ASAP. Of course, ASAP meant it took me a few more months longer to get to Apartment 16 than originally planned, and, this being a pleasure read for me, I took a little longer to let this soak in.

So, knowing that I had all of the previous Nevill books at my disposal, why this one? Why Apartment 16?

Near the end of last year, a friend of mine read this book and messaged me to say that this had been the most frightening book they’d ever read. It made me curious. So, that was the decision maker. If it scared my friend, it would surely make me keep my feet tucked in at night, yeah?

What I liked: One thing I’ve quickly discovered is that it’s almost impossible to accurately review a Nevill book because there are so many layers, so many textures added to with each passing chapter that when the books really take off, once the base layers have been poured and the foundation has settled, you can’t speak of them in the review as it’ll be 100% spoilers.

Apartment 16 starts off with the familiar ‘haunted house’ narrative of a rich aunt has passed away, leaving her apartment in a prestigious part of London to her sister and niece who live in America. They’ve not seen each other in many, many years and had though the aunt had died long before. The niece travels to London to review the apartment and get it set up to sell, but once there finds out her aunt was eccentric and the apartment itself features a number of oddities.

It’s from that synopsis that Nevill showcases why he is a master storytelling and, while I’m no scholar on older works, harkens back to the time when story and setting where told over a number of pages, not blasted at us in thirty second sound bites. Nevill really took his time to create a number of working pieces that when they all came together left me stunned and breathless. Even the two characters I hated and wished were not in the book for a solid 90% of the story were paramount to the story and at the ending were necessary for how things occurred.

Nevill really does have a way of crafting a story and as I mentioned, layers the narrative with in-depth and intriguing plot points. Much like how things happened with Last Days, Apartment 16 has some fantastic ‘additional’ back story which really elevated our antagonist. Loved the eccentric meeting with fans of this character as well as how those who’d previously known this character had ‘evolved.’ Again, really tough to describe these workings while staying spoiler free!

What I didn’t like: I mentioned it briefly, but there were two characters I loathed. I’ll briefly say that the young boy was necessary, but I found his arrivals at the beginning distractive and I wasn’t sure of the need (until later on) and Miles. For someone who stated they wanted to learn so much more about our antagonist he sure seemed to be a bit wishy-washy on learning more later on.

Why you should buy this: If we go all the way back to my initial introduction where my friend told me how scary it was, the logical question now would be; did this book scare me? Answer. Absolutely! Again, much like Last Days, Nevill has a way of shaping the shadows in the corner of the room so that they move and slither while you read. The apartment itself is sneakily left with limited descriptions so when we do spend time in there, it creaks and groans and makes you wish a light was on or that you were reading the book in a crowded space. Safety in numbers is best while enjoying a Nevill book. Apartment 16 may be ten years old now, but there is nothing about it that feels dated. It’s a modern classic that gives us a new spin on how haunted places can act and the lengths the space will go to get what it needs.

I absolutely loved this one and think you will as well.

5/5

If you’d like to buy direct from Adam (with signed options available) you can do so here;

https://www.adamlgnevill.com/ritual-limited-shop-2/

Amazon link;