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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
fast-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:
Yes
dark
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this book. It began with something so simple that developed so quickly into something terrifying and traumatic that you feel the unfairness of the situation and the innocent characters involved, but that's how evil works. It is hungry and desperate, and you can feel it throughout this terrifying story. I can't wait to read more from this author!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence
dark
emotional
sad
Grab this story if you need a fast paced supernatural horror fix!
It’s brutal, creepy, and I hope it gives you nightmares too! Felix invited “it” in and things go from bad to worse to deadly in short order.
I can’t wait to read the next book in the series, hopefully readers will learn more about the Eastwood family and their legacy “gift”.
It’s brutal, creepy, and I hope it gives you nightmares too! Felix invited “it” in and things go from bad to worse to deadly in short order.
I can’t wait to read the next book in the series, hopefully readers will learn more about the Eastwood family and their legacy “gift”.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Book 10/32 for the horror book brawl.
This book is about Felix, a widower and single father who inherited the ability to see ghosts from his mother. He sees an ad for a psychic offering cleansing services, and immediately deems her a fraud, so he hatches a plan to fake a haunting and expose her as a phony. Immediately after, some supernatural things start occuring in his home, and an entity claiming to be his dead wife starts haunting him and his son, Asher.
This book is literally the synopsis. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't expect any major twists or surprises. This book felt so flat for me that I felt I had no choice but to give it one star. It's the type of book that feels worse and worse the more you think about it after reading.
The setting is not important in this book and adds nothing. That's not a true complaint, just an observation.
The character are bleh. We have Felix, who is a single dad who can see ghosts. One might think that his ability to see ghosts may be a helpful tool during a haunting but it actually has zero impact on the story with the exception of making him skeptical of the psychic in the first place.He can't see the demonic entities, so whats the point. When the demons show themselves, everyone in the room sees them the same. This ability helps no one. Felix's son Asher is supposed to be 12 years old but speaks and acts more like an 8 year old - but also doesn't come off as frightened by the obvious haunting as a child or anyone who isn't a robot would be. He talks like a baby and most 12 year olds don't want to sleep in a bed with their dad. Also it makes very little sense that Asher would be at all influenced by the entity, even if he thinks it's his mom, because she died when he was a toddler, so he would naturally be more loyal to his dad, who he has a good relationship with. Lilith is the psychic - it is revealed int he synopsis that she's a fraud but I think it would have actually made for a more compelling story if she wasn't a fraud, and Felix made an error of judgement (especially since he deemed her a fraud before even meeting her). Lilith is a very flat character who also doesn't behave like a real person. For example, if you are charging major money to pretend to speak to peoples dead relatives, why would you show up to every cleansing wearing a sports bra and leggings? Wouldn't you be trying to sell the charade? And if a guy was harassing you, saying that he was trying to expose your fraudulent business but now he's haunted for real, you wouldn't be open to a random sleepover on his couch to see the demonic activity for yourself. Women don't sleep over at random dudes houses, especially as an afterthought with no overnight bag or changes of clothes. That part was so weird. Eli is Felix's brother. He doesn't have a lot of purpose in the story other than owning a dog that growls at the entity. The last minor character is Felix's mom, who can see ghosts but overall isn't super helpful when it comes to solutions - she tells them how to defeat the demon, but it's a pretty lousy option. I thought all the exposition would come from her but it actually comes from The Entity.
After a bunch of horror movie tropessuch as faces turning spooky on home videos, walls bleeding, and paranormal activity style cameras in the house , the entity reveals its name, history, and intentions. Then we just watch things play out. It's pretty unfortunate because none of our characters get a chance to fight back, use their brains, or get the upper hand at any time. None of their strengths and weaknesses even matter because the entity is OP, follows pretty much no rules, and comes off as all-knowing an omnipresent - I normally enjoy an omnipresent entity, but not when we know everything about them and they're humanized to the point of not being spooky anymore, and instead just being disturbing.
Anyways, there were other happenings that I either didn't understand, or that were pretty solid plot holes. This is pretty much spoilers for the whole thing:The entity reveals that it attached itself to Lilith after she did a fake psychic cleansing for a very sick and troubled adolescent boy whom it was haunting. The entity is revealed to be a spirit of a cannibal serial killer that'd kill and eat sad young boys - but since he didn't cross over into the afterlife and is evil, he became a demon (which is why Felix can't see him until he wants to be seen or something). Anyways, this demon decides to force the adolescent boy to kill himself and then follows Lilith because he thinks she will lead him to a bunch of new victims - troubled little boys. And he also forces Lilith to forget him and that any of this happened because he conveniently has that ability, I guess. I don't understand how the demon would think a fake psychic would be the best person to introduce him to new victims. If she was child social worker, that strategy would have made more sense. So then the demon naturally wants Asher when Lilith goes to Felix and Asher's house to cleanse the fake haunting. Then the fake haunting becomes real because the demon makes all the fake ghostly things they talked about come true. Somehow, this demon who was a serial killer from the 1500's knows everything about Jenna's (Felix's wife/Asher's mom) death so it can imitate her. It also knows her perfume so it can make the house smell like her. It also can make them hallucinate anything, move items, and cause physical injuries. Seriously, is there anything this demon can't do? There's no rules, I swear.
So after the fake haunting becomes real, Felix tells Lilith and she refuses to answer his calls or see him (which is strange because she doesn't believe in real hauntings so I don't understand why she wouldn't keep the facade up). Felix goes to his mom who tells him the demon can be stopped by killing the host after it possesses someone. This feels like a weird solution because she's just priming them to kill one of her family members. There's another point where the demon heavily implies that Jenna's car accident was caused by another demon who ate her soul, which explains why Felix never saw her ghost. The book ends with Felix getting possessed and almost forced to kill and eat Asher, but Lilith murders him with a knife. I'm a little surprised that Lilith and Asher didn't try running away and hiding first. She jumped straight to murder! I think murder would be a little more challenging in real life. Then Felix is dead, Lilith is in jail, and Eli takes Asher to Nanny's house only to find that she's also dead because she tried to sacrifice herself to the demon to protect her family. Then theres a weird epilogue where we learn that a demon latched onto her from a troubled boy when she was a teen and her father made a deal with the demon that if he killed himself in sacrifice, the demon could never touch or harm her. So apparently her future sacrifice had no effect because coincidentally this just so happened to be the same exact demon. So Nanny died for no reason. We didn't have any emotional connection to this character but it just made the ending more bleak. Then Eli calls Lilith and she thinks the demon followed her to the jail and that they didn't kill it after all. So idk if thats the same demon or a different demon. Why's there so many demons? Then it's over for real.
My other major piece of beef with this book is that it's called You Invited It In and that's a major theme throughout the book, however literally no one at any time did anything to invite the demons in. The demons all just let themselves in. The characters didn't do anything spiritually wrong or anything reckless at any point in the book. The book also blames Felix for these happenings because he wanted to sabotage Lilith's phony business when he should have minded his own business, however, it was actually pretty righteous of him to not want grieving people to be conned out of thousands of dollars. WHAT IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY? That no one is safe from the demons and they'll come for you no matter if you're a good or bad person? That you're totally powerless once you're haunted and that's that?
Okay, I'm done ranting. On the brightside, the dog doesn't get injured or killed.
This book is about Felix, a widower and single father who inherited the ability to see ghosts from his mother. He sees an ad for a psychic offering cleansing services, and immediately deems her a fraud, so he hatches a plan to fake a haunting and expose her as a phony. Immediately after, some supernatural things start occuring in his home, and an entity claiming to be his dead wife starts haunting him and his son, Asher.
This book is literally the synopsis. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't expect any major twists or surprises. This book felt so flat for me that I felt I had no choice but to give it one star. It's the type of book that feels worse and worse the more you think about it after reading.
The setting is not important in this book and adds nothing. That's not a true complaint, just an observation.
The character are bleh. We have Felix, who is a single dad who can see ghosts. One might think that his ability to see ghosts may be a helpful tool during a haunting but it actually has zero impact on the story with the exception of making him skeptical of the psychic in the first place.
After a bunch of horror movie tropes
Anyways, there were other happenings that I either didn't understand, or that were pretty solid plot holes. This is pretty much spoilers for the whole thing:
So after the fake haunting becomes real, Felix tells Lilith and she refuses to answer his calls or see him (which is strange because she doesn't believe in real hauntings so I don't understand why she wouldn't keep the facade up). Felix goes to his mom who tells him the demon can be stopped by killing the host after it possesses someone. This feels like a weird solution because she's just priming them to kill one of her family members. There's another point where the demon heavily implies that Jenna's car accident was caused by another demon who ate her soul, which explains why Felix never saw her ghost. The book ends with Felix getting possessed and almost forced to kill and eat Asher, but Lilith murders him with a knife. I'm a little surprised that Lilith and Asher didn't try running away and hiding first. She jumped straight to murder! I think murder would be a little more challenging in real life. Then Felix is dead, Lilith is in jail, and Eli takes Asher to Nanny's house only to find that she's also dead because she tried to sacrifice herself to the demon to protect her family. Then theres a weird epilogue where we learn that a demon latched onto her from a troubled boy when she was a teen and her father made a deal with the demon that if he killed himself in sacrifice, the demon could never touch or harm her. So apparently her future sacrifice had no effect because coincidentally this just so happened to be the same exact demon. So Nanny died for no reason. We didn't have any emotional connection to this character but it just made the ending more bleak. Then Eli calls Lilith and she thinks the demon followed her to the jail and that they didn't kill it after all. So idk if thats the same demon or a different demon. Why's there so many demons? Then it's over for real.
My other major piece of beef with this book is that it's called You Invited It In and that's a major theme throughout the book, however literally no one at any time did anything to invite the demons in. The demons all just let themselves in. The characters didn't do anything spiritually wrong or anything reckless at any point in the book. The book also blames Felix for these happenings because he wanted to sabotage Lilith's phony business when he should have minded his own business, however, it was actually pretty righteous of him to not want grieving people to be conned out of thousands of dollars. WHAT IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY? That no one is safe from the demons and they'll come for you no matter if you're a good or bad person? That you're totally powerless once you're haunted and that's that?
Okay, I'm done ranting. On the brightside, the dog doesn't get injured or killed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Suicide, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Gore, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Cannibalism
dark
fast-paced