Title: There’s Someone Inside Your House
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Publication Date: October 5th 2017
Rating: 🌟 🌟
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One-by-one, the students of Osborne High are dying in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, the dark secrets among them must finally be confronted.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review!
Trigger warning for death and graphic violence.
There’s Someone Inside Your House is not the book I thought it would be. Marketed as a horror, it isn’t at all scary but I guess it does deliver on the gore if you’re into that kind of thing. The murders are pretty graphic (which I kind of loved) even if the motivation behind them didn’t really justify the extent to which the bodies were mutilated. Obviously murder isn’t justifiable in most circumstances but I honestly don’t understand why one would need to go that far.
Stephanie Perkins is an author best known for contemporary romance, and that’s exactly what this book felt like to me. Contemporary romance with a touch of serial killer. I didn’t care for the relationship between Makani, our protagonist, and Ollie. Despite having a ‘dark past’ (this revelation was even more disappointing than the other), I wasn’t a huge fan of Makani’s POV and lost interest in the book after the first chapter. It does pick up around mid-way but then it just falls flat again. That being said, there was biracial and transgender representation. I can’t comment on its accuracy but it didn’t feel tokenised.
The pacing of the book was just far too slow for the genre; there was literally no sense of urgency. The murderer (whose identity is revealed) is still out there slaughtering students yet no one seems to be even slightly cautious. It was like watching a horror movie where the person goes into the dark basement even though you’re telling them not to open that freaking door! I was literally yelling at the characters. They weren’t at all suspicious about rearranged furniture even if they could recall that happening to the other victims? Why wouldn’t you get yourself out of there or at least lock yourself in the bathroom and call the police?
Overall, this was highly disappointing. The plot twists were underwhelming, the ending was abrupt, the pacing had its ups and downs and the characters’ decisions made me believe they deserved it. I will still be reading the author’s other novels but I really wouldn’t recommend this one.
headscarves & hardbacks 