The Last House on Needless Street in On The Same Page

Jul 14, 2023 Wyetha rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2023-good-reads-challenge

***CONTAINS LIGHT SPOILERS***

This was a strange, sinister, and downright crazy novel. The Last House on Needless Street would have me scratching my head.

Let’s start with Ted, whom I thought was the villain but is just another victim. Traumatized from childhood, it’s interesting what we do to bury trauma and how the mind protects the body.

Most of the story is told from Ted’s perspective and Oliva, the cat. Yes, that’s as crazy as it sounds. The cat remembers Ted rescuing her as a kitten after he ***CONTAINS LIGHT SPOILERS***

This was a strange, sinister, and downright crazy novel. The Last House on Needless Street would have me scratching my head.

Let’s start with Ted, whom I thought was the villain but is just another victim. Traumatized from childhood, it’s interesting what we do to bury trauma and how the mind protects the body.

Most of the story is told from Ted’s perspective and Oliva, the cat. Yes, that’s as crazy as it sounds. The cat remembers Ted rescuing her as a kitten after her mother died, and even though Ted is a terrible cat father, she loves him, and he is god to Olivia because that’s all she knows.

Oliva (the cat) calls all humans Ted. So, there are big Teds, little Teds (children), and Female Teds (women), which makes perfect sense because how would a cat know one from the other? The cat refers to dogs as “bru-ha-ha’s,” and that took me a bit to figure out, but as the cat describes the creature, you figure it out.

After Ted’s mother dies (somewhere along the line), he starts going to therapy, which is not very clear, but as the character explains it, you begin to figure out that Ted see’s “the Bug Man,” which is what he calls his therapist who has ulterior motives.

Right from the beginning, you know something is not quite right. Ted’s a slob and calls himself a chef because he comes up with these strange (one-of-a-kind) food combinations, and he also drinks heavily, but we learn why this is …later in the story.

Ted has a daughter …Lauren, and it’s clear that she only stays with Ted for a condensed amount of time, but every time he says you must go away now, I feel like something more sinister is happening. At first, I thought she was a ghost, but I knew she wasn’t there due to how he referred to her and the fact that no one (not even his neighbors) had ever seen her.

Fast forward, and we find that Ted's Mother was the real abuser, but it goes deeper than just Ted. Ted would retreat into his mind where his cat lived because this helped help him escape when his mother would inflict pain. (See where I’m going with this) Ted’s Mother would be the key to everything. So, child Ted grew into adult Ted with an extraordinary imagination.

I’ve already given too much away in this story, but all this is to say that I really enjoyed the audiobook version of The Last House on Needless Street.
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