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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This really should have been a full-length work given the book’s summary. As always, Ahlborn kills it in the making the reader feel uncomfortable department, but I just needed a bit more in terms of the story itself.
tense
fast-paced
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book is about a young pregnant couple buying their first home - their dream home - only to find out it has a bit of a bug problem.
That's a better synopsis for this book than the one we are given. This is truly nothing like rosemary's baby other than that there's a pregnant woman who moves to a new house.
I didn't like this book. I love the way Ania Ahlborn writes. Her writing is generally fun and easy to read. I am generally a big fan of her work. If you haven't read her books before, please don't start with this one.
It was the story that I had a problem with. I chose this book because I wanted a short and easy read, but this book would have benefitted from being longer. It felt unfinished. I didn't like the ending.
One of my main complaints is that I genuinely have no idea what this book was trying to tell me. There seemed to be a theme being set up of "What are you willing to sacrifice for your child?" but honestly, this story would have likely been exactly the same if there was no child in it. The baby isn't important.
There was quite a bit of ambiguity in this book. I am left with loads of questions. I don't hate ambiguity in general, but I think that for it to work well, we need to be given more clues/information that give us the ability to debate what really happened.
Also, Louis upset me a lot.Kim adopts an 8yo cat named Louis as a possible solution to the bug problem and then finds him dead almost immediately because he ate some of the bugs that had come into contact with the mass amounts of insecticide she was spraying around the house with. It was a short story. We did not need to introduce a nice old cat just to immediately kill him.
This book also isn't scary. If cockroaches make you squeamish or if you've ever had a bug problem in your house, it may make your skin crawl. The most experience I've had with such things is holding a madagascar hissing cockroach at my high-school career fair so this isn't particularly scary. If it was spiders or centipedes, I may feel differently.
I want to end this by talking about more spoiler-y thoughts and questions.
What was up with Eddie? Could he not see the weird old lady at the open house? Eddie didn't think the bugs were as much of a problem as Kim did and she starts to suspect that he genuinely isn't seeing them. At the start, Eddie kills all the bugs that Kim sees so they much exist in real life. I found myself wondering if there was some sort of grand conspiracy to gaslight Kim and that Eddie was in on it but none of these issues benefit Eddie. The exterminators don't want to spray chemicals indoors because of the baby but Kim does it heavily with no consequences (other than killing the poor cat). I was wondering if maybe Eddie killed the cat and made it look like an accident because he hates cats because he's secretly part of a bug cult or something. But no. It appears to just be a serious bug infestation with no supernatural component that was just a major oversight by the home inspector.
That's a better synopsis for this book than the one we are given. This is truly nothing like rosemary's baby other than that there's a pregnant woman who moves to a new house.
I didn't like this book. I love the way Ania Ahlborn writes. Her writing is generally fun and easy to read. I am generally a big fan of her work. If you haven't read her books before, please don't start with this one.
It was the story that I had a problem with. I chose this book because I wanted a short and easy read, but this book would have benefitted from being longer. It felt unfinished. I didn't like the ending.
One of my main complaints is that I genuinely have no idea what this book was trying to tell me. There seemed to be a theme being set up of "What are you willing to sacrifice for your child?" but honestly, this story would have likely been exactly the same if there was no child in it. The baby isn't important.
There was quite a bit of ambiguity in this book. I am left with loads of questions. I don't hate ambiguity in general, but I think that for it to work well, we need to be given more clues/information that give us the ability to debate what really happened.
Also, Louis upset me a lot.
This book also isn't scary. If cockroaches make you squeamish or if you've ever had a bug problem in your house, it may make your skin crawl. The most experience I've had with such things is holding a madagascar hissing cockroach at my high-school career fair so this isn't particularly scary. If it was spiders or centipedes, I may feel differently.
I want to end this by talking about more spoiler-y thoughts and questions.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Child death
This isn't extreme horror - nothing bad that happens is in graphic detail.
The cat gets poisoned and dies (he goes missing and they find his body later). The exterminator tells the protagonist that his cousins baby died after being left in a crib with a bunch of toys. The protagonist has a fear of bugs and panics and throws up or almost throws up more than once when dealing with the bugs. The book ends with the protagonist accidently setting the house on fire trying to kill the bugs (and honestly fair enough - id burn the place down too), but theres a section where we think her and her baby are trapped in the burning house. They make it out alive though.
I have no idea why I grabbed this audiobook. I am terrified of roaches (palmetto bugs), which gave me 500 types of ick. I love Ania Ahlborn and her horror fuel; this one is no different.
FMC, Kim Devland, is the primary focus of this book. She has it all: a great marriage and a baby on the way. All that is missing is the perfect house to raise her new baby. This house was love at first sight, and she couldn’t be their luck when their offer was accepted. Soon, their perfect house took a nasty turn when creepy crawlies appeared everywhere, scurrying around.
I could not sit still while I listened to this book. My skin crawled, and I felt like little legs were crawling all over my body! The narration was great, and I felt like I was there with Kim, going mad.
A short and sweet story that made my skin crawl! Some of the decisions and priorities of the main character were a little hard to understand, but I thought it was a fun ride. I finished this in the morning and the whole day, every time I would see shadows moving in my kitchen my heart would stop, thinking I would encounter a roach 🤢 in that way, this book really messed with my head 🤣