The Spare Room | Andrea Bartz | Book Review

Set during the pandemic, Andrea Bartz’s The Spare Room centers on a woman who moves in with a friend after the end of her engagement, only to become entangled with the couple in a way that could be deadly…

About the Book | The Spare Room

Kelly’s new life in Philadelphia has turned into a nightmare: She’s friendless and jobless, and the lockdown has her trapped in a tiny apartment with the man she gave up everything for, who’s just called off their wedding. The only bright spot is her newly rekindled friendship with her childhood friend Sabrina—now a glamorous bestselling author with a handsome, high-powered husband.

When Sabrina and Nathan offer Kelly an escape hatch, volunteering the spare room of their remote Virginia mansion, she jumps at the chance to run away from her old life. There, Kelly secretly finds herself falling for both her enchanting hosts—until one night, a wild and unexpected threesome leads the couple to open their marriage for her.

At first, Kelly loves being part of this risqué new world. But when she discovers that the last woman they invited into their marriage is missing, she starts to wonder if they could be dangerous . . . and if she might be next.

My Thoughts | The Spare Room

After really enjoying The Herd and We Were Never Here—previous books by Andrea Bartz—I was thrilled to get my hands on The Spare Room. The premise sounded interesting—a woman becomes involved in an affair and relationship with a married couple, only to learn that the woman acting as the third in their marriage before has gone missing. This sounded too good to pass up! For me, this book didn’t deliver what it needed to. I think this may have been cathartic for the author (and certainly many readers enjoyed it), but the story didn’t fully work for me.

What I liked

The premise of the book was fantastic and I really enjoyed Sabrina as a character. She was alluring, mysterious, caring, charismatic—everything she needed to be for the story to work. The reader needs to understand the magnetism Sabina has in order to make Kelly’s bizarre decisions make sense, and Bartz delivered.

While the teaser for the book mentions Sabrina as an old friend, Kelly and Sabrina weren’t really former friends; more like acquaintances. This actually made the dynamic between them better, because Kelly was sort of this naïve character at the beginning who just wanted to try someone else’s life. If Sabrina had been too close of a friend, their relationship wouldn’t have worked as well. It needed to be largely one-sided to start.

The pacing of the beginning of the story was perfect, and moved pretty directly to the main plot. The book didn’t spend really any time on the set up of the end of Kelly’s relationship, her connection with Sabrina, and her move to live with them. It was touched on sufficiently to provide context, and then the story quickly moved to the main events at Sabrina and Nathan’s house.

There were lots of twists and turns and the ending will certainly surprise most readers (though this is in part because it really wasn’t set up at all by anything we saw in the book). The ending was drawn out enough to provide closure on the fallout from the events of the book.

What didn’t work for me

The first half read like steamy romance fan fiction, and not in a good way. I saw some readers that loved the way the throuple developed, but it was a tad on the cringey side for me. I thought that the way it unfolded made Sabrina and Nathan seem like they weren’t a real couple. Though I presume this was intentional because we are supposed to be suspicious of their motives, it detracted from the way the relationship unfolded.

Kelly is a completely unlikable main character, but not in the fun way. I think the reader is supposed to like Kelly and root for her, but I didn’t. I found Kelly naive, self-centered, and manipulative, but not in an entertaining or intentional way. Kelly doesn’t seem to realize she is taking advantage of everyone around her, as she sees herself as a victim. This makes some of the later twists less impactful than if she had been a character whom I wanted to see things work out for.

As the book got towards the middle, Sabrina and Nathan felt predatory. That ruined the throuple for me because it felt like they were just luring insecure women to their house to use them. This made some of the events unpleasant to read about, and made one of the twists completely not work for me. The back half of the book is wild and didn’t totally make sense because a lot of the character development stalled for the sake of the twists and turns.

A note on the context

I’m going to separate this from what I liked and don’t like because this is really a personal preference. I tend to dislike books that are set during the COVID-19 pandemic without a strong case for it. I prefer books to leave the pandemic out all together when possible, but if they include it I think it works best as a small mention here and there that adds some context.

To me, we are still too close in proximity to the pandemic for it to cathartic to read about, and too far for it to be enjoyable or relatable. It’s raw still. In The Spare Room, the COVID-19 pandemic is used largely as a plot tool to try to explain why the events of the novel were occurring. I didn’t think it was necessary and the duration of their quarantine and the events of the book don’t really line up with what happened in the US with the ebbs and flows the first year.

There was a large element of the epilogue reflecting on the world post-pandemic. won’t spoil the ending of the book or what happened, but I mention it because it felt a bit too grand relative to what actually happened at the time. The book talks about the world re-opening like it was suddenly the case that we all got to leave quarantining and the world was normal and wonderful again. In reality, I think much of the phase heading out of the pandemic was blurry and imprecise, largely depending on the person, where they lived, and their personal comfort level with exposure. That the ending didn’t really address this added to the feeling that we are too close to it still for catharsis in reflecting on it.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

For fans of steamy thrillers, this book is for you. The relationship between Kelly and the couple was fascinating to observe. For readers who love a wild jaw-dropping ending you definitely won’t guess, this book delivers in spades. I wanted to finish this and see what was happening. However, for readers who like character development, this likely won’t be the book for you. Also take note of where your headspace is about reading a book set during the main part of the COVID-19 pandemic before beginning. I buddy read this with Berit and Carrie and they found the COVID-19 element more effective (and less bothersome) than I did.

About the Author | Andrea Bartz

Andrea Bartz is a Brooklyn-based journalist and the New York Times-bestselling author of WE WERE NEVER HERE, a Reese’s Book Club pick. Her debut thriller, THE LOST NIGHT, was an LA Times bestseller, and her sophomore thriller, THE HERD was named a best book of the year by Marie Claire, Crime Reads, Good Housekeeping, and other outlets. Her most recent thriller, THE SPARE ROOM, was a GMA Bonus Buzz Pick, a Marie Claire book club pick, and a best book of summer per People, Shondaland, Glamour, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Vogue, and many other outlets, and she’s held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other publications.