Book Review - Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

Title: Hidden Pictures
Author: Jason Rekulak
Genre: Horror/ Mystery
Published: 2022
 
Description: Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son Teddy.
 
Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nighty runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draw something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.
 
The, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if there are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.
 
Knowing just how crazy is all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.
 
 
Review: I was intrigues by the story. A young boy drawing creepy images and having an imaginary friend. And the drawings are in the book as well. I had such high expectations about this book and everyone has been raving about this book ever since it came out. But may I say that the drawings in the book are the only redeeming feature. I hated this book.
 
We meet Mallory, who just got out of rehab. She manages to get a job with the Maxwell family, Caroline and Ted, to take care of their five-year-old son Teddy. She gets her own living space, has stability and Mallory really enjoys spending time with Teddy. But Teddy draws disturbing images that get worse and worse. Mallory wants to know what these drawings mean and is determined to find out the hidden meaning behind all these pictures.
 
First of all, this is not horror. Because horror means scary. This book is not scary at all. And I scare easily. To be honest, the book is pretty boring for the most part. But that was not my biggest issue with “Hidden Pictures”. Beside it being non-scary, the book is transphobic, anti-atheist, anti-left-leaning, fatphobic.
 
WARNING!!! THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!
 
The twist was shocking, but for all the wrong reasons. Using the child’s gender as a final twist is just distasteful. The Maxwell’s are atheists and it’s clear that the author wants us to believe that trans kids are being forced into it by “evil atheists”. There is so much that is not okay about this. The author clearly misunderstands everything about trans people.
 
END OF SPOILERS!!
 
I can’t believe this book won the GoodReads choice awards in the Horror category. And that som many people are rating it 5-stars. But there are still plenty of people that feel the same way as I do, all having the same bad after taste. They all touch upon the same issues that I had with the book, which made it that I could simply not like this book.
 
Rating: 1/ 5