Reviews with content warning for Classism - Tüm Kapıları Kilitle

Holy mother-forking shirtballs. Lock Every Door took me on a wild ride that I definitely wasn’t expecting. This has to be my favorite of Riley Sager’s books that I’ve read.

Jules is down on her luck. She just lost her job and caught her boyfriend cheating on her. While living on her friend’s couch, she finds and help wanted ad for an apartment sitter. It sounds too good to be true—$12,000 to stay in the famous apartment building, the Bartholomew, for 3 months. What’s the catch? At first, it doesn’t seem like there is one, despite all the weird “rules” assigned to her. But after Jules learns more about the Bartholomew and its residents’ dark past, Jules breaks one of the rules and starts trying to figure out what’s really going on within the building and why apartment sitters keep disappearing.

Once you think you know what’s going on, you probably don’t. This novel draws on themes such as family ties and class to make a poignant point about people having worth no matter how much is in their bank account. Everyone has their own motivations, and exploiting people who have less is never okay.

I loved Jules and her determination to keep pushing no matter what, or who, gets in her way. She’s a great FMC who won’t let her past determine her future.

If you’re looking for a chilling and thrilling novel, you’ve found it in Lock Every Door. It truly did not disappoint.

Content Warnings

markieh's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.0

I actually enjoyed this book. Riley Sager has his flaws when it comes to writing female protagonists, and I have a lot of complaints about it in some of his other books. He definitely wants to make sure the main character is damaged in the worst way before the story starts.
This one at least, had such a good atmosphere, and the twist was kind of bait and switch, which I really enjoyed.

I roll my eyes when most books (that weren't written in the 90s) introduce a satanist human sacrifice cult. Satanic panic is getting old. But this one took you down that road then veered way off the path.

The book was also a pretty biting social commentary about class difference and exploiting the desperation of the poor.
This was my third Sager book, and it's my favorite so far.

Content Warnings

leahdanielle131's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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jessspeake's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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rochelleisreading's review against another edition

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dark hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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lulusreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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singalana's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Things are not going well for our main character, Jules. She lost her job AND her boyfriend on the same day, and she has no money and no family she could reach out to. When she’s offered a job as a housesitter in the famous Bartholomew-building, she accepts, even though the job seems too good to be true.

Despite the strict rules, she gets acquainted with the other housesitters and a few of the residents. She has started to feel uneasy about the building, and when one of the other housesitters disappears, she is determined to find some answers: is she in danger too?

Despite the fact that her sister has disappeared, Jules seems to get very quickly involved in the other housesitters' disappearance. It's hard for the reader to get emotionally invested in the character's disappearance or understand why Jules is so invested in it.

This book has gothic undertones, but I wish that the uneasiness would have been explored more slowly. There are a few moments the book captures the Gothic feeling, but it passes way too quickly. Maybe this book could have done with a little less investigative twists and turns and a little more atmospheric horror. And I wasn’t a huge fan of how we are shown glimpses of how things are now and working our way to find out how Jules ended up there.

For New Yorkers, everyone seems to be surprisingly friendly and helpful in this book.

Things seem to move both too fast and too slow in this book. It certainly is a page turner and I was interested enough to see how it ends, but… More on that in the spoilers.

Spoilers!

The characters feel a bit archetypical and shallow, and like I said, as I was not very invested in the characters, I wasn't as invested in the story as I would have liked. Especially towards the end we get some very clichéd villain monologue.

And of course she manages to throw herself into one of the villain’s (Nick) arms, who is shady from the beginning. The character’s description takes an interesting turn when she finds out he’s involved in the strangeness of Bartholomew: at first he’s depicted as attractive, and then almost nerdy and creepy. Initially the role of a sketchy male suspect is played by Dylan, whose description changes in a similar manner, but to the opposite direction. Even though I have to admit that I kind of liked Nick's ending.

I didn't guess the mystery behind Bartholomew, even though I probably should have. I guess I liked it more when it was Satanic sacrifice. Organ harvesting for the rich seems cheap and boring. In hindsight, the twists were predictable and the book doesn't do much that feels original.

Also I kept expecting to get something out of Jules' sister's disappearance, but apparently it was there only to provide a tragic backstory.

Content Warnings

daringreader13's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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