There's Someone Inside Your House

Every October, I watch only spooky-scary movies and read only spooky-scary books, because I love October and Halloween, and horror is my favorite genre. I throw the occasional suspense/thriller/slasher in the mix as well, just to keep things lively. This year, I was getting too antsy to wait until October, so I amended it to “as soon as Fall officially begins, I will start my spooky-scary binge.” Of course, it's still around 80° out, but it's still the best time of the year! I WILL NOT BE DETERRED FROM MY AUTUMNAL ENJOYMENT.

The good news: this is a great Fall book. It takes place in small-town Nebraska in October, so there are plenty of mentions of browning leaves, chilly weather, corn mazes, Halloween, hoodies, etc. It has a nice atmosphere that made me really want to go to a pumpkin patch.

The bad news: if the rest of my Fall reads are as uneven as this book, it's going to be less “spooky-scary” and more “meh-whaaa?”

There's a lot of good to this book, like a pretty cool cast of characters, the sex positive attitude, the (mostly) authentic feel of a small town, and some genuinely cool and creepy moments from the killer. The idea of someone methodically moving everything slightly around your house, making you second-guess whether or not you are actually home alone? Shivers! And being the weirdo that I am, I am pleased that this book was fairly gory, especially considering the YA audience. But the not-so-good parts, like the too-early reveal of the killer, the tonally inconsistent romance aspect, and the constant references to Makani's “incident” back in Hawaii, which didn't really live up to the mystery although the awful "hazing" incident made me glad I never joined anything other than marching band in high school... outweighed the good, in my opinion.

Honestly, I think I would have liked this more as two separate stories, because I liked Makani and Ollie and their friends, and felt that outsider aspect could have been fleshed out, but didn't think it gelled well with the murder mystery. Once the murderer is revealed, it just sort of lost steam as well.

Considering how disparate I found the two different stories being told, I'm also just not sure what audience to recommend this book to. With all that considered, I'm giving this a very medium 3/5 stars.