Name: Diary of a Haunting
ISBN: 9781481430685

M. Verano

After her parents' high-profile divorce, sixteen-year-old Paige is forced to leave Los Angeles for a rambling Victorian mansion in small-town Idaho where she soon notices strange occurrences that seem to be building toward some unspeakable horror.

Diary of a Haunting

Melissa Palmer

Book #129 Read in 2015
Diary of a Haunting by M. Verano

This was a good, creepy read for Halloween weekend. A family moves into a creepy old house in Idaho and feel that the house is haunted and full of bad energy. Creepy things keep happening to them. Will they be able to cleanse the house of its bad energy before it's too late? Told in a series of journal entries, this book was a quick read. It dragged a bit for me....I was like ok how is this going to end? But overall, it was a decent horror read. I borrowed this book from the public library.

篠田美月

no book shaming because my own tastes are kinda trashy, but who are the people that claim this is a great book? anyway...

well, more like 1,5 stars but I didn’t want to technically give it two. it was boring. very boring, and then somewhere within 85th percentage Exposition came around and, well. it was less boring but also, still boring? 

that being said I was looking for a trash YA pseudo-horror story for October, and I got exactly what I wanted. so in that sense, I am happy.

Adrianna Giunta

This was okay but I couldn't stand the characters in this book. None of their actions made any sense whatsoever and the story just kind of wandered, the ending was lackluster at best. It's an okay read but I wouldn't recommend it.

Kourtney

Poltergeist. The Blair Witch Project. The Ring. Amityville Horror. Paranormal Activity (all of them). 

My horror movie genre that I enjoy is more about what you can't see rather than the blood/guts/gore information. I have read the real story behind the movie Amityville Horror. I enjoyed scaring myself by shutting off all the lights and watching Paranormal Activity - although that backfired when we started using a baby camera to watch my daughter sleep at night because all I kept thinking was "THIS IS JUST LIKE PARANORMAL ACTIVITY! GAH!" So when I saw this book while perusing the book aisle in Target, I immediately snatched it up and couldn't wait to begin. 

I thought it was best to set the mood when reading this book. Wait until night time, after the little one was in bed. Shut off all the lights, snuggle down into my blanket, and begin to scare myself silly. A few design flaws in this plan:

1) Waiting until nighttime is always easiest for reading as who can read with a 1-year-old running around? Emphasis on running. The problem though lies with the exhaustion factor. Once nighttime hits, my eyelids close down for the night. Not the best for reading.

2) Shutting off all the lights isn't so easy - first I have to wash the dishes, take the dogs out one last time, clean up the toys, get everything ready for daycare the next day, did I check my emails? Ok NOW we can shut the lights off...oh wait I need to brush my teeth...

3) Snuggle down into my blanket? When it's July? And 80-something degrees out at night? There is no blanket snuggling here! 

Rather than waiting for my child to turn 18, or for the weather to turn colder I decided to begin the book during the light of day. 

At first this had the makings of a hit. We start with an intro that makes the book feel like it was a true story - it has that Blair Witch feel to it. Told in an online journal (because who writes anymore?) we get to meet Paige and her family who have just moved to Idaho. The scene sets up nicely with a backstory, and first impressions of the house, the town and her new life in general. Slowly things begin to happen that have a supernatural presence about them. More and more is building before you can't put the book down. Is the house haunted? What's Raph hiding? WHAT IS HAPPENING TELL ME MORE!!?!

Now, I don't want to spoil this book for anyone so I am going to try and complain about this next part without giving anything away. 

After setting up 85% of the book (don't quote me on that - it was a physical book I read) the ending RUINED EVERYTHING. I am still sitting here, a day after I finished reading it, shaking my head with disappointment. We went from a very well paced build up to POOF I'm going to throw a lot of information at you, do a reveal that just was weird and then go out to left field and completely change the story.

No. Just no. So disappointed. Don't get your hopes up with this one, because the ending will just let you down - not because I was looking for a happily ever after. I was looking for a well paced ending that fit with the story. This didn't.

Diary of a Haunting

Reviews

Highlights