Book Review Genre: Horror
Disclaimer: Reading is all about exploring new worlds, but this Book Review does not shy away from spoiling specific scenes as this is more of my free-flowing thoughts about a book.
The Analysis:
This was a book club pick. However, it was from almost a year ago. I didn’t want to read the current pick. So, I went through the back list and enjoyed one of the past videos and watched the subsequent accompanying video. It was cool. Now, if it pleases you. I also think this is my first Riley Sager follow me on Goodreads.
Here’s The Blurb:
What was it like? Living in that house.
Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.
Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks toMaggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.
Cover Critique:
The chandelier is important to the story. I wouldn’t call this a bad cover. It’s just not one of my favorites. It’s okay.
Now The Story:
Book Info:
Pages: 400
Author: Riley Sager
Available: Google Play
The story opens with a very freaked-out child and her cynic father. It then fasts forward to the present day. Were introduced to that child again as an adult. Her parents had a run-in with ghosts when she was a small child and too young to remember. Subsequently, she decided that it was all a hoax by her father for fame. The man has now passed on and left her the house and she’s decided to move back in because, why not. The story also alternates between the present and the past. We get Maggie’s return to the house as an adult vs what happened when her parents first moved in.
Now, the present-day storyline is offset by her mother confessing that it was all a fake. Common sense seems to confirm that her alcoholism is all we need to know that it’s true. No one feels that guilty for selling a book and going on a few interviews. But secrecy is part of giving the story depth and I wont question it. In fact, the ending has more depth to it than even I knew. Except, I’m not fully connecting with the heroine, and I’ll explain why.
Disclaimer:
The main character is a skeptic, who doesn’t believe in ghosts. Meanwhile, I remember I’m not reading a women’s fiction and this is decidedly horror. So, I end up rolling my eyes at the characters blustering. I may not know what’s going to happen but it’s certainly more than the skeptic thinks. Which isn’t appealing. These characters are usually the last to accept that their house is on fire while it burns behind them on live TV. So, I skipped those moments of skepticism to get more of the real story.
But that’s not a reflection of the story. This book is a page-turner. At the heart of it, you’re reading to learn if the daughter is right or the father is right. While I like horror, I’m not like a fan, fan. Yet, I found myself devouring every word. I wanted to know what the house held under the floorboards and what creepy crawlers awaited. I read most of it at night and survived lol.
Lengthy Rant:
Let’s discuss character motivation. Primarily, why this loses a point for me.
While getting to know our main character memories surface of a somewhat weird messed up celebrityhood that she suffers under that keeps her from a normal life. But how does knowing it was a fake book change any of that? Was she going to write a tell-all memoir outing her fake parents so people would leave her alone? And in true teenager fashion, she’s kinda selfish. Yes, she saw her parents smiling faces and checks rolling in. But if she was dealing with weird fans, what were they going through? Clearly, nothing because they shielded her from it all. And that was the wrong decision to make with this kid.
When she called the books mere existence, abuse? I’m just going to pause here and say no more. Shaming a guy who went to prison and seems to be reformed from what little we know about him. I’m just going to pause and say nothing. Using the term goth freaks like it’s the 80s, and those aren’t the coolest people on Tiktok. I’m just going to pause and say nothing.
Who did I like? The father. He was also a skeptic, but he was a journalist/writer and that made him naturally curious. I appreciated that approach to the whole haunted house mystery. Don’t make up the answers, try to find them, and form a theory. And at the end of the day, he loved his family. It kinda sucks that his marriage ended in a divorce, but it never swayed how much he loved his daughter. They shouldn’t have kept the truth from her but in a lot of ways they didn’t. Heck, they were on TV. She was just too young to remember it all.
I also loved the moment when she smashes the record player. It’s badass with no regrets. It’s what you want these characters to do in high-stakes fraught situations. Don’t always have the characters choose flight, but fight.
With that in mind, Scooby-Doo endings are not my favorite. Yet, the author sold this one. He packed in the twists and turns the last 15-20%. I had my guess as to who did it and was wrong lol. My guess was the reporter was killing people for fame. There are two fake-outs as to who did it in the end. The 1st one if it had been true would have been a letdown. The 2nd choice had me giddy like I wanted that ending. This book would make tons more sense with that choice. Her personality being the primary factor at least. Then the author threw the curveball and was like, but wait, there’s more, and gave us the person (3rd option) that really did it. Honestly, it made sense and I could totally accept it.
Still, it sucked that there was no monster. It was a letdown. Not all the supernatural events in the house could be explained by the reveal of the culprit, who killed the girl.
Unrelated Story Rant: The character strongly proclaims at the beginning of the novel that science has proven theirs no life after death. Um, excuse me, how and when, did they do that?
Last I heard, such lofty goals as proving ghosts exist are as impossible as proving the existence of God. It’s just outside the scope of scientific methods and can’t be tested. Le sigh, another eye roll moment, but moving on.
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Book Review At A Glance:
Recommendation: 4 out of 5
Book Cover Appeal:
🍓🍓🍓
Story & Narration:
🍓🍓🍓🍓
Romance:
N/A
Character/(s) Personality:
🍓🍓🍓
