45 pages • 1 hour read
Jeneva RoseYou Shouldn't Have Come Here
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Geographical Context: Dubois, Wyoming; and the Wilderness
Dubois, Wyoming—a major setting of You Shouldn’t Have Come Here—is a real community lying along the Big Wind River in central western Wyoming, a part of the Wind River Mountain Range and south of Yellowstone National Park. The small-town atmosphere, as described by Jeneva Rose, is accurate in that Dubois has fewer than 1,000 permanent residents. During the summer, the population doubles with tourists and part-time residents, adding credence to the notion that locals could offer their homes as vacation rentals. The area around Dubois, recognized as a grizzly bear habitat by the Wyoming Fish and Game Department, is replete with wildlife. Thus, Grace and Calvin’s encounter with a mountain lion is realistic. Other animals native to the area are represented as taxidermized heads in Calvin’s house. Furthermore, the area’s river and mountains, as described by Grace, are also realistic—with Grand Teton National Park, Shoshone National Forest, and Yellowstone in particular drawing vacationers. Grace’s choice of this scenery is unsuspicious, given its picturesque environment and high tourist traffic. This run-of-the-mill tourist destination sets the stage for the final reveal that Grace is actually Avery Adams, a serial killer on the hunt, as she has chosen a completely innocuous vacation destination to remove any possibility of suspicion around her motives.
Cultural Context: Airbnb
Central to the novel is Grace’s use of Airbnb, a homestay service that allows residents to rent out their homes to travelers and vacationers. As per her annual tradition, Grace randomly chooses Wyoming for an extended trip, searches images and descriptions of potential homes, and makes a reservation at Calvin’s ranch. However, Airbnb is a two-way street that informs Calvin—later revealed to be as much of a killer as Grace—of potential renters. He discovers Grace’s penchant for reading and buys books to impress her and disarm her. He claims he has no Airbnb connection due to unavailable wi-fi, and because Grace lacks cell service, she is unable to check in with Airbnb herself; Calvin’s claim is later proven false. The novel highlights a real-life concern with Airbnb, as customer safety is not always guaranteed. While Grace’s case is extreme, and she is later revealed to be a serial killer in her own right, homestay services do come with risk—especially if a host or renter is a woman and thus seen as vulnerable. The inherent vulnerability of traveling alone as a woman is amplified by the fear of strangers introduced by Airbnb. The fear of strangers is often exploited in thriller novels to build suspense. The use of Airbnb exemplifies this fear of strangers inherent to the genre as renters and rental owners must interact with anonymous strangers from the internet, wedding contemporary technology with well-worn genre considerations.
Genre Context: Mystery and Thriller Tropes
From the beginning of the novel, Rose creates an ominous atmosphere: Grace feels threatened by a Dubois gas station attendant, and lacks cell service and internet at her Airbnb. Beyond these anxiety-provoking circumstances, Grace expresses a wariness that something is simply not right. Real-life developments such as her fall into a pit of dead animals and new County Sheriff Almond’s search for a missing Airbnb guest verify her wariness, while nightmare-related developments continue to paint Calvin as a threat. However, Rose also incorporates a romance between the seemingly innocent country boy and her uninitiated city girl of a protagonist to explain Grace’s inaction and disarm readers—as Grace is later revealed to be as much of a killer as Calvin.
Overall, Rose incorporates both mystery and thriller tropes to build suspense. As is characteristic of a “closed circle” mystery—a trope in which there is a small, often geographically isolated, pool of suspects—Rose establishes suspects. Having positioned Grace as an unwelcome outsider in Wyoming, these suspects are residents, each harboring secrets. Ironically, Rose creates a list of suspects before revealing any crime to be solved—bar the missing Briana, whom no one aside from Sheriff Almond seems to care about. As is characteristic of a thriller, Grace encounters dangers in the process of achieving a goal—seemingly unveiling Calvin as a serial killer. However, her and Calvin’s awkward goodbye turns into a showdown between two serial killers. In this, Grace is revealed to be an unreliable narrator, having concealed her true colors from both Calvin and readers. The unreliable narrator is common in women-centered thrillers, particularly when the narrator herself is an anti-hero.
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By Jeneva Rose
