You Did Nothing Wrong

“If you were once the autistic child - you did nothing wrong.”

                                                                  -Author C.G Drews 

Why did I frontload that quote from the author’s acknowledgments page? It’s for the little boy Jude, whose character suffered a lot in the pages of this book, and it’s for every real “Jude” out there who’s doing the best they can in their circumstances.

Synopsis:

Elodie, an Australian, has recently married Bren, an American, who has rescued her and her six-year old autistic son Jude from her troubled life there after the horrific deaths of her parents.

Bren has moved his new family into the house he inherited from his own deceased parents. It’s a fixer upper that he’s renovating, but it’s not long until Jude starts hearing voices in the walls and having outbursts, both verbal and physical, saying that the house is going to hurt him and directing most of it at Elodie.

As pregnant Elodie tries to hold on to him, her new baby and Bren, her grasp on reality starts to spiral. Bren steps in more and more to help with Jude, which only makes Elodie’s paranoia grow, and her attempts to control Jude and the house become increasingly unhinged. She’s seeing and hearing things in the house. Why doesn’t Bren believe her?

My takeaway:

This book felt increasingly like a fever dream as it progressed, where the weird happenings and heightening emotions had me on edge. I’ll just say that this isn’t a house I’d want to live in and I’ll be giving all my walls the side-eye for awhile! 👀

I liked the story, but this was a tough book for me at times. As a mom of my own “Jude”, who thankfully never had to resort to some of the things fictional Jude did to be heard or understood, it was painful to watch how the two people he was most dependent on failed him over and over again. They both tried, but their dysfunctions often came at Jude's expense.

As with any triggering content, separating feelings about real life from the things experienced on the page is hard sometimes, and I was so angry with Elodie for the choices she was making. Having said that, I also felt a lot of compassion for both her and Bren because life had dealt both of them some awful hands and it left its mark on both of them. The ending really drove that home!

This was an immersion read with both the audio and a Kindle copy, and Saskia Maarleveld was brilliant once again. Her ability to seamlessly voice an Aussie woman, American man and a young boy convincingly was so impressive, and she made me feel this story to my core. Kudos to C.G. Drews for writing these characters in a way that was so utterly human, capturing their brokenness with such compassion. You won't always like them, but you will feel something for them!

My only minor gripe is the purple prose scattered throughout. Thankfully, it wasn’t too frequent. Some people love those ornately descriptive, deep-sounding sentences, but I usually just find them unnecessarily distracting. Otherwise, if you enjoy an emotionally complex horror-tinged thriller, this might be just the book for you. Just a warning, there are some gross moments, but nothing too awful!

★★★ ½ (rounded to 4)

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press, MacMillan Audio, NetGalley and author C.G. Drews for the DRC and ALC copies to honestly review. This is due to be published March 17, 2026.