| Title | : | Theres Someone Inside Your House |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0525426019 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780525426011 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 287 |
| Publication | : | First published September 26, 2017 |
Makani Young thought she'd left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She's found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn't far behind.
Then, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasingly grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani is forced to confront her own dark secrets.
Theres Someone Inside Your House Reviews
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What happens when an author of cute, fluffy romances writes a gory slasher novel? I'll tell you: You get possibly the most romance-heavy, make out-focused slasher novel you will ever read.
Pretty much everything went wrong with this book. If you want to read a story where most of the minor (i.e. we don't give a damn about them) characters die gory deaths in between repetitive make out/sex sessions, this is for you. I think it is supposed to be scary, but it isn't scary at all. Bloody does not equal scary. There is no suspense, no nail-biting tension. Attempts to ratchet up the tension in certain scenes lead to comical moments like this with an egg timer:She placed the timer back on the countertop. The timer was smooth and white. Innocuous. Haley couldn't pinpoint why, exactly, but the damn thing unsettled her.
Yikes. It's an egg timer. This is at the very beginning of the book and I wanted to giggle, not hide behind a cushion. Of course, in the next chapter after this scene, the school gossip reveals that Haley has been brutally murdered and mutilated.
I really had high hopes for the terror and/or suspense in
There's Someone Inside Your House. The slasher genre may just be a series of death and gore, but it can produce some very scary work. There are some truly terrifying moments in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street ("One, two, Freddy's coming for you" *shudders*). But that just doesn't happen here.
It's low in psychological thrills and tension, high in yuck and slapstick horror. Between murders, Perkins develops a boring romance between Makani and Ollie. Half–African-American and half–Native Hawaiian Makani is a somewhat interesting character that could have been developed more, but bright pink hair and piercings couldn’t stir my interest in Ollie. I got so tired of them making out and having sex.
The three main questions being asked are all handled unsuccessfully, making for a dull read. They are:• Who is the killer? The answer here is unsatisfying because it is someone we’ve barely heard of and literally don’t care about at all. Plus, we find out who it is at just over halfway through the book.
• What is Makani’s secret? The problem was I never cared about her secret past. There’s someone going around slashing people open so the nefarious deeds you did in your past kind of don’t matter.
• Why is the killer killing? The reasoning was pretty lame, IMO. Pamela Voorhees killed because her son died on someone else's watch; Freddy Krueger was raised by an abusive alcoholic; Michael Myers was severely mentally ill; Norman Bates was emotionally-abused by his mother. The reasons here seem, if not unbelievable, stupid and boring.
Also, as I briefly mentioned above, the victims are not people we care about. In most slashers, the killer picks off the family and/or friends of the protagonist one by one. Here, though, it’s a bunch of random students we don’t give a damn about. All of the main characters feel safe.
I'd like to tell you that it's just me, that I only picked this up because I like the author's cute romances so I set myself up for disappointment. But, in truth, my tastes are much more suited to a brutal horror novel than a cutesy love story. This one, however, bored me to tears, and even reading it late at night couldn't generate any terror.
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I know a good bit of people didn't like this book but I freaking loved it and that's all that matters =D
I loved Makani and Ollie! I thought they were awesome together. And well, they got me a little hot and bothered at times. It was fanfreakingtastic!
So this is a teen slasher type book. I'm not sure where anyone ever got off calling it a horror book. It's a mystery, suspense, young adult book. But, I digress.
We have some nutter going around killing classmates. And I thought I might know who the killer was but I was wrong again. I never would have gotten this one.
So, Makani moved to town from Hawaaii < -- did I spell that right? And she lives with her grandma, she takes care of her and watches out for her spells. Makani had some stuff happen to her over on the island so her parents sent her away. Let me take a moment to say what jerks her parents were.
Ollie lives with his brother Chris, who is a cop, because their parents died years ago. Ollie also works at the little grocery store.
I loved these two together, I can't say it enough. I also loved Makani's friends. But the main story is of Makani and Ollie. There is plenty of time for romance in between killings. Am i right? yes...
I enjoyed the story very much. I liked how it wasn't cheesy. I loved how it was played out. I just loved it okay? If you didn't love it then that's alright because we are not all clones! And I don't feel like writing a long review so here you have it! Peace & Love!
Happy Reading!
Mel ♥
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Stephanie Perkins definitely excels at writing fast reads, and this was no exception. Now full disclosure, I'm an absolute chicken therefore, I hate anything scary and thus have 0 knowledge of slasher films or horror films in general. This book was basically the amount of gore and horror I can handle, sometimes it pushed me to my limits but for the most part it was fine. Based on my limited knowledge of these kinds of stories, I know the general outline, and this felt quite generic to me. The whole thing was very bare bones horror story, not much to add to it. Romance is a huge thing which I didn't mind. It was a fun read, in the weirdest way. It definitely had flaws (the fact that you find out the killer very early is the main one), but it was a good Halloween read. Quick, gory, creepy. I never would have picked this up if it weren't by Stephanie Perkins just because I know I don't like the genre, but it was kind of nice to read outside of my comfort zone.
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I had a looooot of feelings about this book - actually, about how people have reacted to this book. So, I'm going to get a rant out of the way. Feel free to skip this paragraph if you don't like rants. People told me it was going to be absolutely horrible, that no self-respecting horror fan would enjoy it, that it didn't fit the horror genre, so on... alright. Lemme tell y'all something. I've been obsessed with horror movies AND books since I was five years old, roughly? I had a blast reading this book. Do not run around telling people that they are no longer horror fans if they enjoyed this book. Are we clear? YOU DO NOT GET TO BELITTLE PEOPLE FOR THE BOOKS THEY ENJOY. Just... stop that, it's gross as hell and immediately ruins any credibility you've ever had in the blogging world.
Okay, rant over. On to the review.→ what i liked ←
- diversity: our main character, Makani, is biracial, and one of her best friends is trans. We get to take a little time to explore the complicated nuances that come along with being biracial and being at times pulled between your cultures, and we also get to see how accepting highschoolers are capable of being in regards to trans friends. It's good stuff. On a lesser note, our love interest has pink hair and refuses to let anyone belittle him for being "the straight guy with pink hair".Just as it was rude and invasive to ask him about his genitalia or sexual preference, it was equally rude and invasive to ask her about her ethnicity. It was the sort of information that should only be volunteered. Never asked for.
- sex positivity: while I don't recall there being any sex scenes whatsoever in this book, there is definitely mention of sex, and it's handled in a really responsible way. Makani and Ollie never feel any need to "justify" how quickly their relationship turns physical, which I loved, because frankly, we need more books that demonstrate that there is nothing wrong with healthy sexual appetites. Also, there are several references to safe sex, with talk about condoms and the like, which we definitely do not see frequently enough in YA!
- the murders: of course they're not terrifying - this book is riding the line between YA contemporary and YA horror, so if you expected nightmare fodder, you should probably reevaluate your own genre-specific expectations... - but they are fun and bloody and a little unique (no spoilers but there's a scene where a guy's skull is literally cracked open and his brain is stabbed to mush, and if you don't find that fun, I dunno how to help you).
- the romance: like I said, this book is definitely straddling the line between horror and contemporary, and there is a very prominent running theme of romance throughout the contemporary side of it, but it's totally precious. Ollie is such a sweet and adorable love interest and, honestly, if Perkins ever announced a spin-off standard contemporary title about these two moving forward in their lives, I'd pre-order the hell out of it.→ what i didn't like ←
- the killer: again, no spoilers, but the killer's identity did not surprise me at all, and worse yet, when their eventual motives were revealed, they were lackluster at best. This is definitely where I felt that Stephanie's horror novice-dom showed itself the most. The thing is, I know Perkins is a life-long horror fan, so she's probably aware of the tropes and such, which made me think while reading the book that I have a sinking suspicion she downplayed this entire plot point to make it more accessible to her contemporary fans? I might be looking too far into things, but that's genuinely my suspicion.→ final thoughts ←
All in all, was this book perfect? Absolutely not. Was it terrifying? Hell, no. But as someone who has painfully low expectations for the complete disaster that is the YA horror genre in most cases, I was so pleasantly surprised by how fun this book was. I could barely put it down because it was just so easy to lose myself in! I could see myself rereading this in the future to fulfill my "cheesy teen slasher" cravings. -
Obvious CW for gore & death, but also be aware that there are descriptions of severe hazing that may make some readers uncomfortable.
As a previous fan of Stephanie Perkins, I knew horror would be out of her element, so I was interested to see what she could do with the genre. I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed but I also wasn’t totally won over. It was interesting without a doubt, but I’m not sure it exceeded my expectations. It kind of felt like a cheesy high school slasher film but in novel form. (I mean, there’s one scene that is supposed to be really serious, full of suspense and danger, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculous fact that one character was naked. I ended up missing a crucial plot point until I reread the scene.) It wasn’t an elaborate horror story, it was essentially just a serial killer terrorizing a town. The ending definitely expanded on the killer’s motives, MO, and storyline, but the bulk of the book lacked the same depth. I would say it was a decent horror novel for a known YA contemporary author, but I’d like to see some improvement if Stephanie Perkins publishes more from this genre in the future.
I definitely liked the characters, but I wouldn’t say they stuck with me. Makani was a fair protagonist, I was really happy to see a biracial character leading the story. Makani is a African American – Native Hawaiian teen, and while I absolutely can’t speak for the rep, the Hawaiian side of her family/the influence of growing up in that culture was very evident and felt well researched. I think Olly is a unique character and a pleasant love interest. Darby and Alex, Makani’s two best friends unfortunately didn’t get a lot of development. I was hoping specifically we would see more of Darby as he’s a transboy in a small town, but they fell flat for me. I am also aware there was some controversy in regards to deadnaming in the original ARC, but the author has apologized and deleted it from the final copy.
I did like that the book was very sex positive even though it’s not a huge part of the story. I wouldn’t necessarily say I encourage adolescent sex, but it is always nice to see teens partaking in behaviors that teens might actually do in real life.
The one thing that was almost UNBAREABLE while reading was the constant reference to Makani’s ~*mysterious past*~. I understand the weight of carrying a dark past, but the influx of “Does he know about my past?” “Could he have found out what I’ve done?” “They’ve seen my records, they know what happened.” was truly aggravating. It was extremely oversaturated – I didn’t need THAT much foreshadowing to tell me Makani left Hawaii for a shady reason. Also, I felt there was so much build up to something that ended up being obviously wrong, but nowhere near as bad as it was made out to be.
All in all, it was a different sort of read. I'm not sure how hardcore horror fans would feel about this novel, but if you're looking for a YA slasher novel, I think you might enjoy.
I received a free copy of this book from Penguin Teen at Book Expo 2017. I had no obligation to review this book and all opinions are my own. -
Another backlist title down and I had so much fun reading it!
Man, I have too many reviews to write.
Full review to come...stay tuned!!!
Update: And it never happened. I never wrote a review and now I have Stephanie Perkins' latest YA Horror novel,
The Woods Are Always Watching on my shelves!
Perhaps, I should binge them both and actually then write a review for this...
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OKAY, FINE. YOU WERE ALL RIGHT.
I thought I knew better. I saw the unbelievably low average rating on this book and thought, Nah. It’ll be fine. I liked literally
one single book that Stephanie Perkins wrote so I should have faith in her, even though I’ve one starred
two
others. Even though that 33% success rate was with contemporaries, a genre I actually like, and this book is horror, supposedly, which I am very, very picky with.
I picked up this book anyway.
And I expected to like it.
I did not like it.
This is not, as I am sure you have heard by now, a horror book. This is not scary. It is in fact very boring. It also does not devote all that much page time to the serial killer in this town, which is, um, what I signed up for.
Instead, it devotes a hell of a lot of pages to a romance.
Truly, I’d be fine with that. If this was a fun fluffy romance with a serial killer in the background...that’s something I could get into.
Unfortunately, this romance was neither “fun” nor “fluffy” nor any other remotely positive word. Instead, it was very very very very very gross, and very very very very insta-love-y, and I did not care for it one bit.
The main (and potentially only) good thing about this book was that it was very diverse. In the past, Stephanie Perkins’s books have been surprisingly diverse for the year they were published, but not really anything to write home about. This one was very impressive on that front.
But, to reiterate, it was not impressive on any other fronts whatsoever. I want to make that very clear.
Bottom line: I should’ve listened to literally everyone.
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pre-review
well.
should've seen this one coming.
review to come / 1.5 stars
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book: *has super low average rating, is by an author I've one-starred twice before, isn't even a genre I read often*
me: wow.....I can't wait to read this :)
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hoping there's a british/french/american boot-wearing hottie in this one.
and also that he doesn't die.
don't fail me this time, Perkins. -
the only thing scary about this book is how terrifyingly bad it is. yikes. what a train wreck.
disclaimer - im not one for scary things. movies, books, you name it. so when this is commonly compared to a slasher flick, i really have no way to determine if thats accurate. maybe it is and this is right on brand with that. i wouldnt know. but that still wouldnt make this a good story, by any means.
i have many problems with this, but the main ones surround the killer. 1) the killer is revealed halfway through the book. i have never experienced that before in any thriller books i have read. so bizarre. 2) the killer is 3) the motive for the killings honestly makes no sense to me and is beyond anti-climactic.
basically, there is no point to this book and the only reason i finished it was because it was so bad, i didnt want to put the book down just to see if it could get any worse. and it did.
↠ 2 stars -
I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.
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This book could be divided into two different novels. On one hand you have a diverse love story with a splash of haunting past and on the other you have someone going around and killing students in a small town during Halloween. They work fine when they are two separate entities. Together, they create a mess.
I still love Stephanie Perkins. I just don't think her mind is messed up enough to create a good slasher. -
If you really truly are reading this because you love horror and live for slasher flicks, do yourself a favor and go read something else. In fact, I’m more than happy to send you a few recommendations. This, unfortunately, shouldn’t pass for horror. It’s a sad excuse for horror with absolutely zero tension, suspense, thrills, or afraid to look under the bed scares. Maybe it’s my fault being my first Stephanie Perkins novel. I know she’s famous for her YA romance novels, which just isn’t my genre. I really trusted that this would be a slasher.
I guess when they said “teen slasher,” they meant it with a heavy emphasis on the teen. You’d think “teen” means we just like the idea of a killer running around amidst our making out and hooking up teen drama-fest, but we don’t actually want any tension-filled horror scenes that fill you with dread for what’s to come.
I should’ve known after the first chapter. And I did adjust my expectations a bit, hoping for some awesome twist at some point to make up for it all. The first chapter introduces us to a character for her to be killed off, which should be awesome. Except we don’t get the murder scene. The chapter cuts off right when she realizes things don’t seem quite right. And then we find out through gossip the next day that she was murdered. I wanted to see this! Show me!
And then when there finally are scenes where other students die, it is just so severely lacking in making me feel anything that the only thing I could feel was boredom. It doesn’t help that we don’t know any of these victims really. They are very minor characters making it hard to stir up any sort of emotion regarding their deaths.
It’d be nice if the romance was worth caring about. It’s not. Or if there was some great twist to the whodunnit that made everything fall into place. There’s not. Any of the reasons I gravitate to slasher or horror in general aren’t present in this novel. I kept hoping it would do something for me. I loved the idea of this novel. Sadly, it was quite the letdown. -
Actual Rating: 2 1/2 Stars. Somewhat entertaining, a few great ideas that go underdeveloped, not much dramatic tension. Or like, any. It's, uh, basically a contemporary where people die and every fifteen percent it gets really messed up.
GOOD THINGS
♔ Perkins has stepped up her game on avoiding tropes, surprisingly? Makani is definitely not the stereotypical virginal blonde protagonist - she's biracial, for one, she sort of hates herself and isn't afraid to take action, and she's also not a virgin. There's also a balanced tone towards sex and it doesn't become either a huge thing or a non-entity. Surprisingly rare balance, damn it.
♚ Makani's character arc around no longer hating herself is kind of a brilliant idea. Execution was mixed, but man, good concept and perfect for the tone of the book. I wish her character arc had gotten more pagetime.
♔ This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but the kill scenes were viscerally terrifying in a really good way. A couple didn't end in a very terrifying way, but they usually succeeded at giving me a good scare.
♚ The love interest, Ollie, is definitely sufficiently cute. And the romance between him and Makani was super cute. I love 3rd person pov romances.
♔ I liked that it was more diverse than some of Perkins' other books. Having a side trans character who doesn't have some tragic story about being trans was lovely - I am so sick of the Sad Tragic Gays. And I've already mentioned that Makani is biracial. I can't speak for the quality of the rep, but none of it fit tropes I know of or was blatantly offensive. If you want more info, feel free to check out some more info down below.
♚ A lot of the reviewers here are saying the killer's motive sucked, and okay, it wasn't shocking or fantastic, but it fit with the theme of the book. In other words, if the rest of the book had been fantastic, it would've been fine.BAD THINGS
♔ You know what makes thrillers unsettling? A really terrifying killer reveal. You know what this did not have? A really terrifying killer reveal.
♚ It really lacks suspense. The first half being more romancey could actually work in the book's favor, with a fabulous buildup where you come to care for every character with the knowledge that things are about to get crazy in the back of your mind. But the second half? No, you can't focus on romance anymore.
♔ Makani's character arc feels messy. Okay, there are two directions you could've gone with here. Direction one could've been making it something really terrible and having Makani as an antihero, the far creepier and more entertaining option. Unfortunately, Makani's secret is really not that bad. This could still work with Perkins' route; direction two would be focusing on her hatred for herself and writing a good character arc. But that's not the focus either. It just ends up as quite a drab and uninteresting arc.
♚ The writing. Okay, you cannot write like this:“Memories aren’t reliable, anyway.” Makani wished that she could forget. In the darkest hours of the night, her own memory was keen and cruel.
This is just... so overdramatic?? And it was isolated, but it came across.
♔ Tone problem. Huuuuuuuuuge tone problem. This reads like a contemporary but then people are also DYING. And it feels as if it could work but it really does not.
♚ Sometimes the darkness of the material feels very brushed aside. Make it darker, make it creepier, make life more unfair. If I were to sum up this book's problems, I'd call it a decent book that could've been a lot better if it weren't trying to play it safe like this.
TW: gore. a trans character is deadnamed in several early editions; this was edited out.
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*3.25*
I can’t tell that I didn’t enjoy this one. I liked it but I didn’t love it.
Although, at the beginning it felt like it would be one of those boring thrillers with a predictable plot, I was taken by surprise. The suspense and the mystery made my heart beat uncontrollably in certain points of the novel. It was an easy and fast-paced read, best-suited to those who want some adrenaline in their veins.
Great role in the plot played the friendship between Makani, Darby and Alex. They are those friends that everyone wants to have. I also loved the romance throughout the story, even if at the beginning I was concerned, as the author invested a lot of writing in that. I mean it is a thriller; I would rather be informed more about the background, the motives and the inner world of the villains than the development of the relationship between the two main characters.
Moving on, I would like to have more information on the Makani’s relationship with her parents. The only thing that I’ve got through the story was that her parents were way too indifferent to her and the reason the author gave me wasn’t an adequate one. Again, in the negative aspects, I would like to stress out that in the first one hundred pages, I had the impression that I was reading a purely romantic story, about two teenagers who had gone through some very unfortunate events in their lives, and they were trying to comfort themselves into one another. I would have embraced the fact, would it be a romance and not a thriller.
Overall, it was a good read and I recommend it to those who are in search of some mystery, suspense, crazy serial killers (as if there are sane serial killers), and some romance. -
As long as it's got your name on it, Stephanie Perkins, I'll read it. Even if it gives me nightmares.
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Content warning: Several scenes of descriptive gore. Mention of suicide.
Representation: The main character is African American and Native Hawaiian. There is an African American side character (her grandmother) and a trans male side character.
Issues: The trans side character is deadnamed* twice in the finished copy I read (pgs 11 & 83), despite this having been brought to Perkins's attention as offensive by early readers of the ARCs. She did apologize in June of 2017 and said she had corrected it and it would not appear in finished copies (
source), but that correction did not make it to the US first printing. No idea if it will be fixed in future editions.
My thoughts:
I went into this book knowing that it was a blend of romance and a cheesy teen slasher rather than serious horror. That's exactly what I came for, and that's exactly what the book was. It met my expectations perfectly and gave me what I wanted, so I enjoyed the story.
I loved that the male love interest was an atypical love interest. He's an outcast, has piercings and pink hair, kinda goth, skinny body type that's never described as "just muscular enough" or other cliches. Although I enjoyed the romance, I didn't find it particularly swoony, which is perhaps why I personally didn't find it overpowering.
The killer is revealed earlier than I expected, and I know a lot of people didn't like that. I loved it! It's so common to save the reveal until the end, but I loved getting to see the other characters react to this information. The suspense did not dissipate for me, it just switched from "who?" to "why?"
I do wish more of the murders took place actually inside the characters' homes, since that's the title of the book and all (and those were the creepiest parts to me). I also think the resolution was far too brief. The text ends at the bottom of a page and I turned the page expecting more only to be met with blank end pages!
All in all, if the trans rep problem will actually be fixed, I would read a sequel (or 5) of this. Imagine the franchise: "There's Someone Inside Your House 2." "There's Som3one Inside Your House: Time to Move Out." "There's STILL Someone Inside Your House." "House5" What can I say? I was a sucker for Scream.
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*To learn more about what deadnaming is and why it's harmful, see
here and
here. -
UPDATE JUNE 10, 2017.
Now that was some wicked, delightful, bloody fun.
I enjoyed this book so much.
Probably more than I intended to. And it's extremely short. The book barely clocks in 300 pages. However, it is an arc so there's that but I actually, genuinely, enjoy this format a lot better.
The main character is Hawaiian and there's some great LGBTQ representation in the book as well. I could relate very well with the main character, whose name is, Mariko Young. Going to a midwestern state after growing up in a diverse community with a well verse culture, was a complete shock to the system. To give you some background info, I was born and raised in California. However, for my freshman year of college, I went to a private university in Kansas. And oooh boy. Different as fuck. But eye opening and a wonderful experience.
The kills in the book were real bloody, bloody. I loved it. Not to sound like some sick person but I surprisingly winced at some of parts of the book and had to take a couple breaths at times because it was so gruesome. And I can actually watch it on screen no problem. Written on paper, however....
If not for the YA classification, this book, were it made into a movie, would be hardcore rated R. Not just for bloody violence but for the profanity as well. It had so much more than the average YA book. I'm actually surprised that this book will be released for ages 14+. Don't get me wrong, kids of all ages swear and cuss all the time now, but I thought it was rare for YA books to contain at least more than two or three f-words. I also think the book itself would have benefited so much more if the characters in were in college instead of in high school. Realistically speaking of course.
Overall, There's Someone Inside Your House, was fun fun fun. Definitely recommend. It's funny actually, I was really hesitant and wary of reading this book because of the author's previous works. This was my first book from her and I wasn't disappointed! Stephanie had only written teen romance contemporaries beforehand and I was kind of curious and careful as to see how she would handle horror.
But good job, Ms. Perkins. Kudos to you. I hope you come back to this particular genre in the future.
Nonetheless, this book wasn't perfect. But easily the most entertaining book I've read all year.
But spoilers for later.
4 STARS.
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...... "Scream meets YA..."
....but like the characters in the movie are the same age??
K.
Also don't forget the MTV SHOW.
lols
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So missleading.. Literally not at all what I expected.
I have way to many questions still and feel really confused.
I LOVED the romance and the dialogue was fun but apart from that it was odd.
Sentences just seemed like they had been placed awkwardly and the flash back scene was odd. I just feel like a lot of this didn't need to be in it.
I am so sad that i didnt like this -
PLEASE DON'T LET ME DOWN.
————
update:
this did let me down
i was expecting a slasher type horror book but instead i got a not very likeable and honestly kind of gross romance.
half of the book was pretty much the two main characters doing the nasty while there was this serial killer in town WHICH when it was revealed their identity, the only thing i could think of was "what the f" because it was a super random character, and their reason for killing was honestly stupid.
i was also pretty bored most of the time. the characters were kind of insufferable and i wanted everybody to die. the ending was pretty meh.
the book tries too hard to be something it is not. -
4.75* I'd heard mixed things before going into There's Someone Inside Your House, so I was a little apprehensive before reading. I've adored everything I've previously read from Stephanie Perkins' and didn't want to be disappointed. Thankfully, I'm very happy to say this book was no different, I wasn't disappointed at all. In fact, I absolutely loved it. There's just something about Stephanie Perkins' writing that never fails to pull me in from the get go. It's simple yet lovely, to the point and gripping. She has an ability to make me instantly care about the people she writes and stories she tells.
There's Someone Inside Your House was fast paced, gruesome and disturbing. Yet, at the same time, also adorable, funny and heart warming?! We were dropped right into the first action, with the first gory murder happening in the first chapter and the pace and excitement didn't slow from there. I was instantly gripped, causing me to finish this book in just two sittings (which is something I haven't done in a very long time!) I was surprised by just how graphic and gruesome the murders were but, although disturbing, I kind of loved it and loved that they appeared in an other wise seemingly cute contemporary.
If you're looking for a light hearted, fluffy contemporary or a nail bitingly terrifying horror, that's not what you'll get with this book. However, what you do get is a brilliant mix of the two and I would 100% recommend it.
With its diverse cast of loveable characters, grisly murders and heart warming relationships, There's Someone Inside Your House is a book I didn't realise I needed but most certainly did. -
Find all of my reviews at:
http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
Words cannot even express the amount of joy it brings me when I am the first of my friends to read something. Well, when it’s something I liked - being the one to burst the bubble when a highly anticipated release turns out to be a turd kinda sucks. Anywho, when I saw this blurb . . . .
“Scream meets YA”
I had much excite! But then I saw the next part . . . .
“ in this hotly-anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss”
Oh noes. My experience with
Anna was mucho baddo : (
There’s Someone Inside Your House is Exhibit A of why you shouldn’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to giving an author a second chance. This was everything I wanted it to be. Much like with
One Of Us Is Lying earlier this year, the comparison to its “inspired by” or counterpart or whatever you want to call it was spot on. The only difference???
They say there are no more original ideas. And maybe that’s true. (Except what
Shelby just read about eating baby teeth – that seems pretty friggin’ original.) There’s Someone Inside Your House proves that an idea doesn’t have to be original for it to be a crapload of fun. This one follows the slasher formula pretty well. There’s a super baddy who just wants to . . . .
Well, maybe he wants to stab the shit out of you and mash your brains, but you get the idea.
There are oversexed teens who say things like “I’ll be right back” and other stuff that shows they didn’t take the sage advice of this fella . . . .
There’s even a little humor when everyone should be in panic mode . . .
“Shit! What’s your password?”
“9999.”
“What? Why would you do that? Somebody could guess that!”
“You didn’t.”
Bonus was you weren’t forced to spin your wheels for forever and a day before you found out who the killer was. The big reveal happened about the halfway mark – but that didn’t stop the stabber from stabbing ‘cause they still had to catch him/her/them (no spoilsies)! By the end of this I was like . . .
The only things missing? Matthew Lillard making me snortlaugh . . . .
Skeet Ulrich making me wanna get my freak on . . . .
And Gus Black’s remake of More Cowbell . . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRjUQ...
Really, though, this was so much fun. Highly recommended to add to your TBR for your own . . . .
Endless thanks to my book bestie for the present. A jar of pee is on the way to you in return! -
Have you ever wondered what would happen if YA contemporary romance writer turned to the dark side? Apparently, this is it, and I’m slightly disappointed.
This book is a high school murder mystery, kind of like Scream but not as good. Sorry, to admit it so early on, but the mystery in this book never really pulled me. Part of this may have been due to the fact that most of the victims are people we hardly know.
If you want the audience to be afraid for the characters, you are gonna have to go a little Game of Thrones and start killing people who have at least more than two lines. Put your characters in danger! Show us that the characters we’ve grown attached to can die!
Since there was none of that going down there was no real suspense.
There were certain questions that went throughout the book, that was obviously made to create suspense but ended up failing. Questions such as, “what is Makani’s deep dark secret”? We spend half of the book wondering why she left Hawaii and while it was bad, it’s really not as bad as the build-up made it seem.
Also, things like the villain reveal. I love that moment when we finally find out who done it. Here, it was really anticlimactic. I had to read it twice to make sure that this random person they so casually mentioned really was the murderer (not a spoiler because everyone but the MC is really just a random character that randomly pops up). And then, their motive seemed a bit...lame, I guess? It wasn't predictable but it made me think like it wasn't a good enough reason to start murdering people. Not that there ever is a good reason to murder people!
In the end, I think that the overall problem with this “murder mystery” was that it read too much like a regular, non-mystery contemporary novel. I liked the romance between Makani and Ollie, it was cute and engaging and it made me smile at several moments. The problem was that while I was reading about them falling for each other, I couldn’t help but remember that people were getting killed in the background and little focus is being cast on it until the end. This ain’t a romance novel Stephanie! I would appreciate a little less love and little more murder!
Still, I liked this book. The writing wasn’t bad. The characters were pretty decent. The horror was very gruesome, not very scary, but bloody and really messed up. Also, I read one of the murder scenes before going to bed one night and was paranoid until the moment I fell asleep, so it gets bonus points for that.
Now, here are a few tips for survival.
1. This is for the current and future parents out there: if there is a murderer who's killing teenagers on the loose in your town (God forbid), don’t go on vacation to Vegas and leave your child alone! What kind of neglectful parent are you!
2. Another thing, if there is a killer on the loose and you start noticing sketchy things in your house one night, don’t assume it’s a prank, and don’t go to investigate! Run for your lives!
3. Also, if you are in a crowd while a killer is on the loose, don’t decide that now is the best time to enter a secluded/abandoned area on your own. That just ain’t smart.
4. Lastly, if a shadowy figure appears in your house, and you are aware that a killer is out there, heck, even if you aren’t aware of the killer, don’t go slowly walking towards it! Grab a weapon and run! #CommonSense #Survival
*I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*
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1.5 stars
What a disappointment.
Warning: mild spoilers.
After this one I’m done with Stephanie Perkins. At this point I don’t know why I liked Anna and the French Kiss two years ago, maybe if I reread it now I’d hate it as much as the other ones. I really wonder what I liked about it back then.
Her characters and the relationships feel unreal to me, that’s why I can’t enter the story completely. They feel flat and one-dimensional just like paper. They live? It’s okay to me. They die? That’s okay to me too. I don’t really care about them.
And most importantly, her mc are so unlikable and immature.
However, this book in particular had many problems regarding the plot. I waited years to read it and then it ended up absolutely sucking. Because, if you write contemporary books and you decide to write a horror, here’s what you should not do:
1. Reveal the killer in the middle of the book. The mysterious killer also being someone we don’t know and don’t care about.
2. Write the creepy book without a trace of suspense and of creepy scenes. Using the sentence “blood was everywhere” a million times is not going to affect me at all. And little descriptions of what the killer did to the bodies like “he had drawn a smiley face with crosses for eyes in her throat” are not even slasher.
3. Kill characters we know nothing about, including their names. And making your mc such a special snowflake by having her being the only one that could save herself from the attack of the killer.
4. Having a blurb that promises all things scary and a book that is a contemporary undercover.
And talking about ridiculous things:
1. The ending in the corn maze with 50 teenagers who couldn’t stop a single bony and small teenage boy.
2. The motive, which was also perfectly predictable.
3. Makani being angry at her friends because they suspect her boyfriend to be the killer.
4. Makani’s dark past. Laughable.
5. All the victims thinking they’re losing their minds when they see things in their house out of place. COME ON. -
This is fabulous. The perfect horror/romance combo. I need more books like this. Thank goodness THE WOODS ARE ALWAYS WATCHING is already out.
-
I was terrified to read this book bc it seems the general majority of readers had HATED it and I was like nooooooooooooooooo not Stephanie perkins, I don’t wanna have to cancel 2017 just yet
And TURNS OUT, it wasn’t THAT bad
Here’s the deal, GO. IN. WITH. NEGATIVE. EXPECTATIONS.
Yes kids you heard me. Keep those expectations as low as they are with your math scores okay, trust me on this
Also know that the thriller aspect of the book is HEAVILY garnished with contemporary lit. like LOTS of it.
If you’re looking for a thriller that will rattle your bones and make your stomach digest itself, this probably aint the book for you but if youre looking for a contemporary ft. an entertaining thriller, than this is your boi
I have to say, the ending part threw me off. Up till the resolution on why the murderer was murdering, I would have given a 4 star but the reasoning was just blehhhhhh
I enjoyed reading about the romance, it wasn’t rushed and Stephanie perkins has this way of writing the cutest couples gahhhh but honestly I was CRAVING to see more of the other to-be-couples
I also heard a lot of people say the thriller aspect was boooooring to them and bruh idk about you but THERE WERE PARTS THAT I WAS SHAKING so like just keep an open mind if you’re gonna pick this one up
ALSO THIS IS PROBABLY THE FIRST CONTEMPORARY I READ THAT IS WRITTEN IN 3RD PERSON YYYAASSSS
3.5 stars!! -
I've been thinking about this for a while and I've finally realised how much I did NOT like this 😡😡 While I intially gave it 3 stars and thought of it was okay, the more time the passed, the more I didn't like it. Ugh such a disappointment!! 😤😤
“I guess you never really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head.”
There's Someone Inside Your House follows Makani Young, who has moved to Osborne to escape her dark past in Hawaii. The boring town changes overnight when a string of gruesome murders of high school students uproot everything. Who will be next on this killer's hit list?
“Everybody has at least one moment they deeply regret, but that one moment...it doesn't define all of you.”
This was honestly soooo disappointing. So much potential wasted. I'm still really annoyed that it didn't hit 😒😒
There are several reasons why I don't like this. Let's just go over them.
➳ Firstly, I really didn't like both the characters and the romance. The characters were super bland and personality less and feel like cardboard cutouts of real people. They were the most boring people I've ever had to read about, and since Makani was so uninteresting, it drove me mad being stuck inside her head 😤😤🙄🙄
And ugh, the romance really wasn't good!! For the first say 100 pages it completely overwhelmed the story, so much so that the characters were basically ignoring the murders so that they could make out and have sex. And can anyone who's read this pls explain how Ollie is supposed to be a good love interest... 🤦♀️🤦♀️
➳ The 'mystery' itself is terrible. The murderer is revealed halfway through the book by complete accident and the rest of the book just feels super repetitive. The murderer was also mentioned, like, once or twice before they are unmasked, which makes it feel super anticlimactic and boring. Also, their motivations for the murders??? Literally make no sense. I'm still super confused why they actually did it tbh 🤔🤔🙄🙄
➳ It is not well-written at all and the writing feels super clunky and unnatural. The author uses shock to keep her reader going, while not actually writing it well. The murders are overly gory and unnecessarily gruesome. This may be a personal preferance thing, but I feel like the murders didn't actually need to be that grim and it just started feeling unnecessary after a while?? I dunno, probably just me, but I didn't like that 😑😑
Overall, I really was NOT a fan. I was expecting an entertaining murder mystery, but what I got was what felt like a first draft, with uneven pacing, blander than cardboard characters and a really uninventive twist. I wouldn't recommend this at tbh. It's just a total waste of time ☹☹
~ 2 stars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, that was... a ride. I think I'm gonna need to while to process this, but just know it was a very interesting experience! 🙈🙈
Review with more coherent thoughts to come! -
1.5 stars
I received this copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The story is about a girl who has escaped her past and her parents have sent her to live with her grand-mother. After she begins her high school, some of the students were murdered one by one and she doesn’t know who is next in the list. Makani (main character) and her friends try to identify some of the similarities between the victims to know who will be the next target. There is also a romance story line between Makani and Oliver (Ollie). Makani’s friends suspect Ollie since he had Makani’s phone number without her knowing. But then it revealed how he was able to get her phone number; Ollie’s brother was a police officer. The killer was identified half way into the story when he tried to murder Makani (after the attack she had to reveal her past to her friends) and the other remaining half of the story is about running after the murderer while guessing the next target and informing victims-to-be about their vulnerability for an attack.
I quite don’t understand the motive behind all these murders expect that the murderer is jealous about the students who were trying to move away from Osborne. For me, it didn’t make any sense.
And I think the depth to the horror is lacking since I didn’t feel any terror throughout the story.
I found the plot rather disappointing and boring but it will change the way you see. -
This was very much like reading a slasher movie, in an entertaining & chilling kind of way.
-
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"People live through such pain only once; pain comes again, but it finds a tougher surface."
This is presented as a horror/thriller. It’s supposed to be, as per the promotion, “Scream meets YA.” The title, the cover – it’s all saying READ ME!
You compare something to Scream and I say GIMME.
I love Scream. I love all 90s teen slashers. I grew up on that shit. It’s an important part of my developmental stages from child to teen to adult… which probably explains a lot.
But this is only comparable to Scream in the most basic way.
Teens. Killer killing those teens. Small town scared. End of.
This is not really horror. Or it's lopsided horror. It starts off with a super sinister murder, but the rest of the novel failed to live up to that vibe.
This is more of a romance set against a horror backdrop.
This is horny teens fucking and drooling over each other, and then in between some random characters, who you don’t give a shit about, die.
I will say this to the benefit of Perkins – those death scenes were gory and gruesome and I thoroughly enjoyed them.
But everyone who dies is a minor character who has no real connection to the protagonist – Makani Young – and her group of friends. The deaths are glorified gory cut scenes that are pretty entertaining, but nothing more than that. They exist between teen drama and teen sex. There's no menace for the main characters.
I feel like the only thing that can pull off the death of random characters is slasher flicks in the vein of Friday the 13th. Because we know what we’re watching the movie for – the blood and guts of a bunch of random people. That's literally the whole point. Books can’t create the same vibe with random characters??? Can they? I don't know. Whatever.
Anyway, for me, there's no way an average teen romance was ever going to be more interesting than the serial killer working in the background. That’s where this novel lost me.
At some point, Makani is attacked and things get a little bit more personal, but the why doesn’t make sense. And the fact that Ollie was naked at the time is what gets the most attention.
Horror and thriller fans are probably going to be underwhelmed like me. It lacks tension and scares, and comes across as very uneven in what is getting the most narrative attention.
But if you love YA romance and want it with a spooky twist or if you’re a bit of a horror pussy, but still want to try it, this would be for you.
It’s not a bad novel and the writing is good, but I feel like it’s just not entirely what it claims to be.
Updated to add: The movie is better.
⭐⭐⭐ | 3 stars -
So this book is one of the surprises of the last couple of years for me!!! I didn't really expect to like it that much but daaaaammmmmnnnn!!! It's like one of my favourite books now!
It was soooo creepy and the tension just builds up so perfectly. I can't even explain to you what a mistake it was to read this alone downstairs late at night.
Here is a true story. One night I stayed up quite late reading this book and I got freaked out so I decided to escape upstairs and try to sleep. I popped into the bathroom to get ready for bed and heard the biggest crash coming from downstairs. I freaked the fuck out. I didn't know what the hell to do. My partner said he didn't hear it, I was frozen on the landing. I slammed the light on and could see the downstairs bathroom door was open. Some bugger had balanced my son's car seat in a stupid way and it had toppled over and pushed the door open. But I was convinced, convinced, that there was someone in my house trying to kill me.
The killers identity was a totally shock and I LOVE that we found out who it was in the middle of the book. I was then waiting for them to pop up all the time and knowing who you were looking for didn't help them at all. When they were on the run but got picked up by a truck heading back to town and the police knew that but still couldn't find them because of all the farmland and shit...got it just made you feel so helpless and hopeless.
I thought the reasoning behind the killings was genius. I'm not gonna go into it because I want this to be as spoiler free as possible, but it made such twisted sense I was kinda mad about it 🤣
So, Makani. I loved this girl. All that guilt, all that hate she'd been through. It was awful but it wasn't her fault. It kind of demonstrated how bad social media can be at times. Why was she the one punished? What about the ones that started it all? Her parents made me super angry too because they were arseholes. Thank god she has Grandma Young who was amazing and such a schoolteacher retired or not! I really liked the dynamic between them.
Makani was a fun character. She was pretty comfortable in her own skin even though the past kept nipping at her heels. She used her "exoticness" to her advantage and she was just a nice girl who'd been through shit and was making the best of it. I liked her friendship with Darby and Alex. But I think they could have been utilised more. They kind of took a step back once the relationship with Ollie for going and then popped up again when they needed to be threatened to affect Makani. But that is literally the one thing I had a problem with.
Lets talk about Ollie. *Sigh* oh Ollie. How I love you. Small town America and this dude dies his hair bright pink, ignores the talk about all the bad times in his life and the speculation, he is happy to be by himself and he is comfortable in his own skin. The way he literally launched himself, butt naked down the stairs to save Makani from the killer was amazing. He is an incredibly brave and heroic and demonstrates this throughout the book. I just adored him and his backstory, the relationship between him and his brother, and the friction between them because of the blurring of his brothers role. And the way he was with Grandma Young was so sweet. I just really love him ok he's my favourite.
Overall this is a fantastic, suspenseful read. It is full of interesting, lovable characters and has lots of twists and turns. It genuinely is like reading a book version of Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer and it is just as jumpy and creepy!!
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I literally could not put this down!!! I'm so sad it's over!! Full RTC. -
4.5 stars
I had been hearing Stephanie talk about her upcoming YA horror for a while and I was so excited for it. So when I saw it on EW, I downloaded it immediately and got to reading.
I loved this cast of characters. They're smart and strong and loyal to each other. Makari and Ollie are adorable and there's definitely the standard spark and banter that we expect from Stephanie's words. There's also some great diversity represented as well as a thread of inner monologue from Makari about asking about genitalia and ethnicity.
Plotwise, it starts out with a bang and was pretty fast paced throughout. The small lulls in the story felt like just enough time to get my heart steady before something else would happen. It was creepy and tension filled and there was just so much damn corn.
My only complaint {if you could call it that} was that the reason behind everything was sort of stupid. I guess that's what really makes it scary...
**Huge thanks to Dutton Books for providing the arc free of charge**
