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3.13 AVERAGE
3.13 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Dementia
dark
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The small, Italian town of Becchina is one of many trying to revitalize. So when American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi get the opportunity to purchase a home for 1 Euro as long as they live there for five years and work to help bring some tourism back to the area, it sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.
Tommy’s grandparents even live there, and they see it as an opportunity to spend the couple’s golden years with them. As they settle in, however, a shadow seems to hover over them, and Tommy’s grandmother is furious when she discovers exactly which house they bought. Everyone in town seems to know the house’s dark history, and when the couple finally find out, they agree it might be an interesting tourism angle. That is, until maybe the stories are true, and maybe that dark history is about to rise up.
I enjoyed this book. It had a nice slow burn that actually built to something, yet it wasn’t such a slow build in tension that I lost interest. It was an interesting angle on the haunted house story, the haunted history of the Catholic Church, and people’s belief in the supernatural.
It was a quick, entertaining read, and I’d definitely pick up another book by Christopher Golden.
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Boring for a religious horror
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I loved the premise and initial unease, but the narration and reveals killed it for me.
Energy: Curious. Stubborn. Tactless.
Scene: 🇮🇹 A slightly abandoned Sicilian village offering low-cost homes.
Perspective: We follow a newlywed couple moving to Italy after purchasing a 1 euro home to renovate.
🐺 Growls: Kate’s entire personality
🐕 Howls: The writing style and execution of the reveals and high-stakes scenes.
🐩 Tail Wags: Creative setting. Interesting premise. The beginning as they settle in.
🤔 Random Thoughts:
I loved reading the first half late at night, it scared me. But it lost me at the reveals. To be fair, I’m not usually scared by religious explanations, but in this case, it was mainly because of the contradictory suspense. The best way I can describe w/o spoilers is:
-“We don’t believe in religion, so we aren’t worried.” Yells at everyone for not informing them about the religious dangers.
-Swearing at religious authorities that their rituals are lies to control people. Followed by swearing at religious authorities because they didn’t perform the rituals correctly.
Maybe the characters were meant to be conflicted? But they seem to forget their own beliefs from moment to moment.
It spent too much time on heavy commentary about religion and was all over the place. There was commentary about religious atrocities followed by validation of those same beliefs as reality. I didn’t get what it was going for; it was just distracting.
Not pretentious, but close. I was rereading sentences. It got in the way of my imaginings.
I sometimes wanted to shush our third-person narrator. We enter an unsettling scene, pause for backstory…the scene continues then is interrupted to add more backstory.
----
🎬 Tale-Telling: Plot-driven. Telling style. A little clunky and circles back on itself to remake the same point.
🤓 Reader Role: Hanging out with our narrator as they take us through scenes and fill us in on backstories.
🗺️ World-Building: Not effortless but worth the investment. Enough foundation to imagine as much or as little as you’d like (YouTube helped me).
🔥 Fuel: Why are the townsfolk so uneasy about the house? Who or what is bumping around at night? What’s going on with Thomas’ grandparents? Will the characters survive?
📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief to plausible depending on your beliefs.
🚙 Journey: Watching a movie recommended by a friend. They already saw it and want you to like it but keep interrupting instead of letting it speak for itself.
Mood Reading Match-Up:
Energy: Curious. Stubborn. Tactless.
Scene: 🇮🇹 A slightly abandoned Sicilian village offering low-cost homes.
Perspective: We follow a newlywed couple moving to Italy after purchasing a 1 euro home to renovate.
🐺 Growls: Kate’s entire personality
🐕 Howls: The writing style and execution of the reveals and high-stakes scenes.
🐩 Tail Wags: Creative setting. Interesting premise. The beginning as they settle in.
🤔 Random Thoughts:
I loved reading the first half late at night, it scared me. But it lost me at the reveals. To be fair, I’m not usually scared by religious explanations, but in this case, it was mainly because of the contradictory suspense. The best way I can describe w/o spoilers is:
-“We don’t believe in religion, so we aren’t worried.” Yells at everyone for not informing them about the religious dangers.
-Swearing at religious authorities that their rituals are lies to control people. Followed by swearing at religious authorities because they didn’t perform the rituals correctly.
Maybe the characters were meant to be conflicted? But they seem to forget their own beliefs from moment to moment.
It spent too much time on heavy commentary about religion and was all over the place. There was commentary about religious atrocities followed by validation of those same beliefs as reality. I didn’t get what it was going for; it was just distracting.
Not pretentious, but close. I was rereading sentences. It got in the way of my imaginings.
I sometimes wanted to shush our third-person narrator. We enter an unsettling scene, pause for backstory…the scene continues then is interrupted to add more backstory.
----
🎬 Tale-Telling: Plot-driven. Telling style. A little clunky and circles back on itself to remake the same point.
🤓 Reader Role: Hanging out with our narrator as they take us through scenes and fill us in on backstories.
🗺️ World-Building: Not effortless but worth the investment. Enough foundation to imagine as much or as little as you’d like (YouTube helped me).
🔥 Fuel: Why are the townsfolk so uneasy about the house? Who or what is bumping around at night? What’s going on with Thomas’ grandparents? Will the characters survive?
📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief to plausible depending on your beliefs.
🚙 Journey: Watching a movie recommended by a friend. They already saw it and want you to like it but keep interrupting instead of letting it speak for itself.
Mood Reading Match-Up:
- Hot sun. Dense summer air. Church bells. Stone and dust. Mildew. Darkness. Rats scurrying. Doors slamming. Heavy footsteps. Incense. Chanting.
- Religious (Catholic/Christian) themed suspense and survival thriller
- Possession horrors
- Creepy grandparents
Content Heads-Up: Occult, possession, demons. Religious trauma. Mental illness (prejudice, abuse). Earthquakes, rubble. Medical (stroke). Rats. Blood. Confinement. Violence (knife, threats). Loss of a grandparent. Loss of a parent. Loss of a spouse.
Rep: Gay. Lesbian. Heterosexual. Cisgender. Diverse skin tones. Italian, American, British, and Senegalese characters.
📚 Format: Library Digital
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Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Blood
Minor: Violence