If you just caught that unsettling trailer before The Odyssey, the one where Jessica Chastain plays something that is almost, but not quite, a mother, you have met Other Mommy. And the book behind it is Josh Malerman's Incidents Around the House, a horror novel told entirely through the eyes of a little girl named Bela, whose closet has started producing a visitor who wants very badly to get inside her heart. It is one of the most genuinely frightening books of recent years, and with the movie coming this October, now is the time to read it.
Below: what it's about (spoiler-free), a quick guide to the Other Mommy movie, the full plot, the whole cast, the themes, how it ends, twelve discussion questions, my honest take, and what to read next. Full spoilers once you reach the plot summary. Please check the content notes before you start.
If you haven't seen The Odyssey yet check out our summary.
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Quick Facts
- Released: June 25, 2024
- Author: Josh Malerman (author of Bird Box, Malorie, and Pearl)
- Publisher: Del Rey
- Genre: horror, supernatural horror, psychological horror
- Setting: a contemporary suburban family home, told entirely from a young child's point of view
- Film adaptation: Other Mommy, directed by Rob Savage, starring Jessica Chastain, from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, in theaters October 9, 2026
- Book Club Verdict: deeply creepy and surprisingly moving. A great pick for a group that wants to be scared and then wants to talk about family, secrets, and fear.
- Content notes: supernatural horror and sustained dread, a young child in psychological peril, a manipulative entity targeting a child, parental infidelity, loss of innocence, a distressing scene of a child in danger in water, and a dark, ambiguous ending. The horror is psychological rather than graphic or gory.
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman Book Cover
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What Incidents Around the House is about (spoiler-free)
Bela is a young girl with a loving, ordinary family, a mom, a dad she calls Daddo, and a grandmother nearby. She also has a friend named Other Mommy, who lives in her bedroom closet and comes out at night. Other Mommy has been visiting for a while, and lately she keeps asking Bela the same gentle, terrible question: can she come inside Bela's heart?
Told entirely in Bela's voice, the novel starts as the story of a child's imaginary friend and slowly, expertly tightens into something much worse. As Other Mommy's requests grow more insistent and her presence starts spilling out beyond the closet, Bela's parents are forced to admit that whatever is in their house is real, and that it is not willing to be reasoned with. Incidents Around the House is Josh Malerman's terrifying novel about family, buried secrets, and a love that twists into something darker.
About the Other Mommy Movie (2026)
The film adaptation is titled Other Mommy, and if you saw its trailer, that might be because Universal attached the first look to theatrical screenings of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey before releasing it online. Here is what to know:
- Director: Rob Savage (Host, The Boogeyman), working from a screenplay by Nathan Elston
- Starring: Jessica Chastain, in a dual role as both the mother and the monster, alongside Jay Duplass and Dichen Lachman
- Producers: Blumhouse with James Wan's Atomic Monster
- Studio and release: Universal Pictures, in theaters October 9, 2026
The story follows the same premise as the book: a young girl named Bela whose home is invaded by a presence that looks uncannily like her mother and wants to get inside her heart. If you want to read it before you see it, you have a few months, and the book is very much worth the nightmares. This is not something I say lightly.
Full Plot Summary (Full Spoilers)
⚠️ Major spoilers ahead, including the ending. If you haven't finished the book and plan to, skip down to the Characters or Discussion Questions. If you are calling it and just need to know how it ends proceed.
The friend in the closet
Bela narrates her life in her own voice, and in that child's voice she calmly describes Other Mommy. The figure who emerges from her closet at night to play and talk. Other Mommy is affectionate and constant, but she keeps asking to go inside Bela's heart, and she repeating unsettling little maxims like "friends give and take." At first Bela's parents treat Other Mommy as an ordinary imaginary friend.
The house stops pretending
The dread ratchets up as Other Mommy's presence refuses to stay imaginary. The ceiling creaks with her movement. During a party, a guest sees a monstrous figure and panics, and though the adults blame the drinks, Bela knows exactly who was seen. The family can no longer pretend it is nothing. Meanwhile, cracks in the marriage surface: Bela's mother is carrying secrets, including an affair, and the family's buried history begins to feel tangled up with the thing in the house.
Running, and being followed
The family tries everything, fleeing to relatives, calling on friends, psychics, and anyone who might understand what they are facing. Other Mommy follows. It becomes clear the entity is bound to Bela and to the family's secrets, not to the house. There is nowhere to take Bela that Other Mommy cannot reach her.
How Incidents Around the House ends
The truth about Other Mommy. The story builds toward revelations that link Other Mommy to the family's hidden past, including the secrets Bela's mother has been keeping, and to the entity's twisted idea of love. Other Mommy is not an imaginary friend and not quite a ghost. She is something older and hungrier, and what she wants is to take Bela for herself.
The darkest hour. The family's attempts to fight or flee fail one by one. There is a harrowing sequence in which Bela, overwhelmed and in despair, ends up in danger in the water. This is the low point that strips away any comfort we have been clinging to. The grandmother, Grandma Ruth, sees the situation more clearly than the parents and pushes to confront the entity directly.
The heart. In the end, we closes on Other Mommy's original question. Bela appears to accept and let Other Mommy "go into her heart". The fate of her parents and grandmother is left deliberately unresolved.
It is a bleak, ambiguous ending. Is this surrender, a twisted friendship, or the final theft of a child's innocence? Malerman refuses to tidy it up for us. It is the kind of ending a book club will argue about for the rest of the night.
Characters
Bela. Our narrator, a young girl whose innocent, funny, frightened voice carries the entire novel. She is caught between her love for her parents and the pull of Other Mommy.
Other Mommy. The entity from the closet, tender and patient and monstrous, forever asking to be let inside Bela's heart. Whether she is a supernatural being, a family curse, or something in between is part of the book's terror.
Bela's Mother (Mommy). Loving but frazzled and overwhelmed, and carrying secrets, including an affair, that turns out to be entangled with the haunting. Her guilt and longing for escape make her vulnerable in ways she does not understand.
Bela's Father (Daddo). A devoted dad who attempts to cope through logic and denial. He has a desperate need to control and protect in a situation that will not allow it. His love is real and also not nearly enough.
Grandma Ruth. Bela's grandmother and the one adult willing to see the situation clearly. She cuts through the family's denial and pushes them toward confronting what is actually happening.
Lois Anthony. A friend of the family with ties to the occult, who offers help and a glimpse of a larger stranger world beyond the family's understanding.
Book Club Discussion Questions
These are the ones that will get your group talking, ordered from warm-up to heated.
- The entire book is narrated in Bela's child voice, with the page formatted to match. How did that choice shape the fear for you? Did it work?
- Other Mommy is affectionate and patient, never overtly violent at first. Why is that scarier than a more obvious monster?
- The recurring question, "Can I go into your heart?", is doing a lot of work. What did it come to mean for you by the end?
- Bela's parents spend a long time explaining Other Mommy away. Did their denial feel realistic, or frustrating, or both?
- The novel ties the haunting to the mother's secrets and the affair. How did you read the connection between family secrets and the supernatural?
- Grandma Ruth sees the danger before anyone else. Why do you think Malerman made the grandmother the clear-eyed one?
- Other Mommy insists that "friends give and take." How does the book use the language of friendship and love as a mask for something predatory?
- Daddo copes with logic, Mommy with denial. Did either approach ever stand a chance? What did the book say about a parent's power?
- The ending is ambiguous, with Bela seemingly accepting Other Mommy. Did you read it as surrender, tragedy, or something else?
- The fate of the parents and grandmother is left unresolved. Did you want a clearer ending, or did the ambiguity make it more powerful?
- Having seen the Other Mommy trailer, how do you imagine the film will handle a story told so completely from inside a child's head? What will be gained or lost?
- Where does this land for you among horror novels: is it more effective as a scary story, or as a story about a family coming apart?
My Honest Take
I do not scare easily on the page, and this one got me. Malerman's masterstroke is using Bela's voice. By trapping you inside Bela's sweet, matter-of-fact narration, he makes you see the danger she cannot. You spend the whole book wanting to reach through the pages and pull her out of that bedroom.
The unusual formatting, narration and dialogue laid out to mimic how a child experiences the world sounds like a gimmick but it works incredibly well. It is the thing that makes this book unforgettable.
Fair warning: this is genuinely frightening, and because the person in danger is a small child. So it hits differently than your average haunted-house story, especially if you are a parent. It is psychological horror, not gore, but the dread is relentless and the ending offers no easy comfort.
If your group likes to be scared and then dig into what the scare was really about, family, secrets, the terror of not being able to keep your child safe, this is a superb, talk-for-hours pick. And it is the perfect read before the Other Mommy movie lands in October.
If You Liked Incidents Around the House, Read These Next
Want to stay in the Ink & Imaginings world? Every one of these has a full guide right here, so you can dive straight into the next one.
📚 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke: a slow-burn, atmospheric horror about a past that refuses to stay buried. If the creeping dread of Other Mommy is what hooked you, start here.
📚 Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth: a twisty domestic suspense about a woman everyone is quick to call mad, and the family secrets underneath. For readers who love an unsettling surface and a slow reveal.
📚 The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark: a novelist digs into her estranged family's dark past and the ghosts, literal and otherwise, that come with it. Family secrets as a haunting, just like this one.
📚 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: a gorgeous, dread-soaked haunted-house novel about a family and the hungry thing that sustains it. The closest horror read-alike we have covered.
📚 The Housewife by Natalie Barelli: a gleefully twisty domestic thriller with a narrator hiding an agenda, for when you want your unease with a side of revenge.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Incidents Around the House about?
It's Josh Malerman's 2024 horror novel, narrated entirely by a young girl named Bela, whose closet is home to an entity she calls Other Mommy. Other Mommy seems friendly but keeps asking to go "inside Bela's heart," and as her presence grows more real and more dangerous, Bela's family is forced to confront both the supernatural threat and the buried secrets it feeds on.
How does Incidents Around the House end?
The haunting is revealed to be tied to the family's secrets, and Other Mommy is shown to want to replace Bela's mother and claim Bela for herself. After the family's attempts to flee and fight fail, the book ends ambiguously, with Bela seemingly accepting Other Mommy's offer to go into her heart, and the fate of her parents and grandmother left unresolved. It is a deliberately dark, open-ended finale.
Is Incidents Around the House being made into a movie?
Yes. The film adaptation is titled Other Mommy, directed by Rob Savage and starring Jessica Chastain as both the mother and the monster, produced by Blumhouse and James Wan's Atomic Monster. Universal Pictures is releasing it on October 9, 2026, and its trailer debuted before screenings of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.
Is Incidents Around the House scary?
Yes, it's widely considered one of the scariest recent horror novels. The fear is psychological rather than gory, built through a child's-eye narration and relentless dread, and the fact that the person in danger is a small child makes it especially intense.
Who wrote Incidents Around the House?
Josh Malerman, a New York Times bestselling horror author best known for Bird Box, which became a hit Netflix film. His other books include Malorie, Goblin, and Pearl. Incidents Around the House was published by Del Rey in 2024.
