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chasingpages1's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Death of parent, Death, Dementia, Gaslighting, Stalking, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Sexual content, Chronic illness, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Cancer, Cursing, and Religious bigotry
bookcheshirecat's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
4.0
“Grief is tricky like that. It can lie low for hours, long enough for magical thinking to take hold. Then, when you’re good and vulnerable, it will leap out at you like a fun-house skeleton, and all the pain you thought was gone comes roaring back.”
➽ Home Before Dark is among my favorite Riley Sager books! The story follows Maggie Holt whose family got famous for living in a supposedly haunted house back when she was a child. Her father wrote a bestselling book called House of Horrors about their ghostly phenomenon and Maggie's been dealing with its popularity for years. She's not thrilled to be famous in ghost-hunting circles and doesn't remember much of what happened. The only hints are in the book and Maggie's convinced her father made it all up. Her parents have never talked about it with her and Maggie got tired of being shot down. Now her father has passed away and left her the house ... and a lot of unanswered questions. She decides to renovate the House of Horrors and confront her past once and for all!
➽ I love haunted house stories and I liked the fine line between truth and fiction! We get alternating chapters of Maggie renovating the house and experiencing suspicious phenomena and excerpts from the book told by her father when they last lived in the house! I loved how we were left guessing how much of it was true, especially as Maggie lacks any concrete memory of the time. Strange things are happening in the house, but she's never sure if it's supernatural or simply bad vibes. After all the house had a dark past, as it was the scene of a brutal crime. I loved all the twists and turns! I also liked the exploration of Maggie's grief and complicated relationship with her father. Now that he passed away, she can never directly ask him for the truth!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Violence, Dementia, and Grief
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Cancer
spookychelle87's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Suicide, Death of parent, Death, and Child death
Minor: Blood, Dementia, and Cancer
stacy_85's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Cancer, and Death
dev921's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Murder, Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Stalking, and Violence
meeklovestoread's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Honestly this book was such a fun time! The back and forth between chapters work so well. And I love how each chapter correlated with the present events that the main character was going through. I personally found the whole book entertaining. Even the twist at the end, even though it was pretty messy. I still enjoyed it. And it did spook me a little bit too!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Death, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Stalking, Child death, Suicide, Alcohol, and Body shaming
Minor: Cursing, Cancer, and Adult/minor relationship
julienicole1106's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Grief, Cancer, Suicide, Vomit, Murder, Stalking, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Car accident, Child abuse, Blood, and Death of parent
mandkips's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death, and Child death
Moderate: Death of parent, Suicide, and Grief
Minor: Cancer
mm_1996's review against another edition
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Child death, Suicide, Dementia, Blood, Grief, and Murder
brittanyae's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Grief is tricky like that. It can lie low for hours, long enough for magical thinking to take hold. Then, when you’re good and vulnerable, it will leap out at you like a fun-house skeleton, and all the pain you thought was gone comes roaring back.
The more I think on this book, the more issues I have with it. Knocked the rating down to 3 stars, though it's probably somewhere between 3 and 3.5 if I could be nuanced.
Okay, finally diving into trying to write this, even though I feel awful tonight. But I feel like I've put it off for long enough.
So I think the main issue here is just that... I went into this with too high of expectations.
Everyone that remotely enjoys horror/thriller has been hyping this book up, and almost everyone I've seen talk about it or review it has given it 5 stars. I listened to an interview the author did about the book before I read it as well and it got me even more excited to read it. It seemed like everywhere I turned, this book was popping up, and everyone was singing its praises.
And it's not like it was bad - not at all! I enjoyed my read of it. But it was just that. Just enjoyable, not amazing, not worth all the hype to me. It wasn't scary to me at all - though I fully realize that that's entirely a personal preference kind of thing. I've seen others say it kept them up at night. But nothing about this book was particularly scary to me. Was there some good spooky imagery? Yes, for sure. I had Sixteen Going On Seventeen stuck on a loop in my head for days because of the way it popped up creepily in this story. But that was probably the most unsettling thing for me: the idea of a normally cute, cheerful song playing hauntingly in an empty house, seemingly on its own.
And then we get to the ending, where we seemed to go through about 4 actual endings before we knew what really happened. It wrapped up with one ending, then we found out that was wrong when another character came in and gave us a different ending. And then another character came back along and gave us a different ending and explanation - and all of this happens in the span of the last handful of pages! It felt like Sager was trying to make this overly complex and add in unnecessary twists and turns for shock value, but it just felt like too much to me.
There's also a bit of... I don't want to say false advertising really, but you're definitely led to believe by the blurb and the hype around this book that it's
What I will say is that the format of this book is so interesting. I loved the book inside of a book concept, and I thought it was an interesting way to give us the whole picture of what was happening in the house, both from when Maggie was a child and from her return as an adult. And I will also say that I think Riley Sager knows how to write very compelling characters. I was drawn in by Maggie's messy childhood and by her father's secrets and by the small town gossip characters; I feel like the characters are where this book shines over the plot.
Immediately upon finishing this book, my reaction was "That was really good" but the longer I sat with it, the more I felt a little more out of sorts with it. I just think that maybe one false ending and then the real one coming out and a little more build-up to that would've made the book better. I needed another maybe... 50 pages put into the ending explaining things, and more of an epilogue going over the aftermath of it all, for it to really shine.
I do still really want to try more of his books, though, because this read super fast and was still a fun read! I'd like to see what his other works are like. (Also, not really important in the long run, but I have to mention how gorgeous and how cool the dust jacket for this book is. I have to. It glows in the dark; that's too cool not to touch on!)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, Suicide, Grief, Cancer, Child death, and Death
Minor: Adult/minor relationship