Ratings5
Average rating4.8
Wow. So there is A LOT going on here. In fact, there was so much, I could no longer listen to the audio version of this and switched to the print (it was too hard to follow when characters that were not there a second ago pop up out of nowhere).
We have an actual haunted house, where memories of past residents are wandering around rooms. The house is constantly moving doors, too, a la the Winchester Mansion. And of course, there is a locked room that no one has the key too. I mean, of course.
We have an unreliable narrator, townsfolk who hate the weird Wakefield family, a swamp that never spits out the bones of those it swallows, a swamp witch, escaped slaves, and a wicked case of domestic abuse. I may have missed it, why is the mom no longer a nurse? Was she Nurse Ratched?
On top of this, the narrator's pregnant sister is home and may just be about to give birth to the second cousin to the anti-Christ.
Yup. Kaplan throws all of these balls in the air and manages to pull off a freaking awesome novel. I was hooked, literally could not turn the pages fast enough. THIS is want I want when I say I want a haunted house story. I can't believe more people are not talking about this book and I can't believe no one has compared it to We Have Always Lived in the Castle yet. Well, there. I just did.
It loses a star for a magical negro trope rescue that happens out in the swamp. The witch can't have her own face? It had to be Clementine to save Julian?
Also, I'm not crazy about the title. It doesn't fit the text, but I don't rate books on their titles or covers.