Sarah Gailey

Just Like Home

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories— she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.

Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?

There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.

I’m…not really sure how to feel about this one. The story was interesting and unique but I just couldn’t get excited about anything happening. I think the writing style was a little slow-paced, and I didn’t really start liking or empathizing with any of the characters until the last few chapters. Overall fine, but not my favorite haunted house book by far. 

erin alise 

This book had a ton of surprises and a lot of goo.

Patty Pforte

Started out very slow and I was almost ready to DNF a few times, but pushed through to the end since I’d heard high praise. The end was certainly more thrilling and fast-paced, but not sure if it made up for the beginning. Creepy and well written, though not my regular read.

Erin Goss

I was bamboozled by this book. I am unsure as to whether I loved or hated this book. This book nailed a lot of things, but it also failed in other aspects.

I was confused about what rating to give to this book. I really despised how slow I went for the first 150 pages. It still goes about slow after but at least it got more interesting. The first 150 pages focus on Vera going into her dying mother's room. If I had been reading it rather than listening to the audiobook this would have likely been a DNF and gone to the come back to later list.

Mythos

4/5 stars

I was bamboozled by this book. I am unsure as to whether I loved or hated this book. This book nailed a lot of things, but it also failed in other aspects.

I was confused about what rating to give to this book. I really despised how slow I went for the first 150 pages. It still goes about slow after but at least it got more interesting. The first 150 pages focus on Vera going into her dying mother's room. If I had been reading it rather than listening to the audiobook this would have likely been a DNF and gone to the come back to later list.

Vera's childhood POV was enticingly gorey enough for horror, the attempts at making the serial-killer father figure a loving parent, and the slight dabbling in gothic themes was what got me going through this book. Quite frankly I wish there had been a lot more of the above, and almost none of Vera as an adult. Despite spending almost all of our time with an adult Vera, it managed to feel both rushed and a drag. The  descriptions were too repetitive and saccharine sweet and, quite frankly plain kitschy, for a horror novel. How many times am I going to have to read about this girl missing her serial killer father "in her father's home that he built" and yadda yadda. Maybe if she started missing him later in the novel as her own misdeeds came to light it would work. And the half hearted redemption arc given to her father at the end helped very little. Vera should have had more meaningful interactions with her best friend and then boy she tortured in her basement. And her mother, who ended up being so unbelievably cold for no quite good reason it teetered on unbelievable. And Vera needs to be aged down, because quite frankly even I was shocked at how quickly she became delusional. And don't even get me started on the paranormal elements. And James. James is utterly useless until a final twist at the end that is unearned. His character is sort of a meaningless blob of flirtatious until he is suddenly evil and taking over Vera's house. The paranormal is very poorly introduced and threaded throughout, the author clearly trying to give us hints and threads but so little genuine buildup that when the house starts speaking to Vera I almost gagged. I feel the novel didn't want to let Vera and her father be fucked up and disturbing yet enticingly sympathetic. It wanted to be halfheartedly pushing a sort of symbiosis between them and the house, without the proper work of a horror novel to get you questioning if the sins they are attempting to cleanse of others need to be cleanses or not. Vera is innocent until suddenly she is not. She is so good hearted until she delights in being cruel. And ignore the lack of transition between these things despite this book dragging on. And also actually she's fine in the end. And her house is talking to her. The end. 1.5 stars, just because there were certain hints of a novel I would have loved inside of this, themes of dirt and oil and grease we are attempting to drain from ourselves, horror and desire and hunger, it got my stomach to churn exactly once. Credit there. But just a bad read overall. Finished in one day.

Hayley Sayre

I thought this book was so unique. At times it was slow, but I like the way it flipped back and forth between time frames, as well as the surprises throughout.