Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
A disturbing tale about surviving parental abuse. It was sometimes hard to follow with nothing to identify the switch from past to present besides a line break. Super long chapters.
This book was a lot. I went into it blind since I remembered I skipped it on BOTM and it was an old TBR. I'm not sure if it was inspired by the real House of Horrors family but it detailed that type of abuse to the characters and the trauma that follows them through their lives through Girl A. I wouldn't classify this as a typical thriller but it was psychological and suspenseful. Overall I struggled to finish it after the climax about 80 percent of the way through, but it was interestingly written and I would read more of Dean if she comes out with another novel.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Incredibly mind numbing with not particularly engaging nor likeable characters
Not your standard murder mystery. I enjoyed the concept, but the book definitely dragged at many points.
3.5 stars rounded up. This is a hard book to read. It’s sad, but I couldn’t stop reading it. Here’s why:
Lex Gracie is Girl A. She’s the one who escaped. Lex has 4 brothers, Boy A through Boy D. She has two sisters, Girls B and C.
Lex has lived through a nightmare. Her childhood home became known as the House of Horrors. However, while the reader knows there is abuse, the full extent is not really graphically detailed. Much like the children trapped in their rooms only hearing the abuse around them, the reader is also left to their imaginings on what is really happening most times.
The book is broken into 7 very long chapters. Each child, except one, gets a chapter starting with Boy A, Ethan.
I followed pretty much until the chapter went from Girl B to Boy D. This is when I dug in. I did look ahead and Girl Cs chapter comes after Boy D and right before the last chapter when they are together again. It drove me nuts not knowing where Boy C was!! I am a very linear thinking person and this just through me for a loop! I literally checked each chapter to make sure I didn’t miss Boy C. He does show up but intermingled in Boy Ds chapter as if they are interchangeable. It was very odd to me and if I were to DNF the book, I would have done it at this point because the chapter made the least sense to me of all of them!
And, the timelines within the chapters change almost by paragraph! Also as a reader, there’s a sense of unreliability, untrustworthiness from the beginning; however, I think that is to convey the story through the lens of Lex who doesn’t really understand or remember accurately everything she endured.
But Lex’s story is heartbreaking. It’s the story of how children who endure abuse carry it with them at all times. And each child endured and remembered their lives differently, yet each was scarred.
Overall, I don’t feel right saying I liked this book because it’s full of awful abuse. But I could not stop reading this book and hoping for an ending that you know from the beginning doesn’t happen. The writing , to me, was very good. Again, it’s not traditional-the timelines are all over, the stories are intermingled, and there are a lot of questions at the end, but I felt for Lex, and if I didn’t love her, I feel like I understood Lex at the end.
Lex Gracie is Girl A. She’s the one who escaped. Lex has 4 brothers, Boy A through Boy D. She has two sisters, Girls B and C.
Lex has lived through a nightmare. Her childhood home became known as the House of Horrors. However, while the reader knows there is abuse, the full extent is not really graphically detailed. Much like the children trapped in their rooms only hearing the abuse around them, the reader is also left to their imaginings on what is really happening most times.
The book is broken into 7 very long chapters. Each child, except one, gets a chapter starting with Boy A, Ethan.
I followed pretty much until the chapter went from Girl B to Boy D. This is when I dug in. I did look ahead and Girl Cs chapter comes after Boy D and right before the last chapter when they are together again. It drove me nuts not knowing where Boy C was!! I am a very linear thinking person and this just through me for a loop! I literally checked each chapter to make sure I didn’t miss Boy C. He does show up but intermingled in Boy Ds chapter as if they are interchangeable. It was very odd to me and if I were to DNF the book, I would have done it at this point because the chapter made the least sense to me of all of them!
And, the timelines within the chapters change almost by paragraph! Also as a reader, there’s a sense of unreliability, untrustworthiness from the beginning; however, I think that is to convey the story through the lens of Lex who doesn’t really understand or remember accurately everything she endured.
But Lex’s story is heartbreaking. It’s the story of how children who endure abuse carry it with them at all times. And each child endured and remembered their lives differently, yet each was scarred.
Overall, I don’t feel right saying I liked this book because it’s full of awful abuse. But I could not stop reading this book and hoping for an ending that you know from the beginning doesn’t happen. The writing , to me, was very good. Again, it’s not traditional-the timelines are all over, the stories are intermingled, and there are a lot of questions at the end, but I felt for Lex, and if I didn’t love her, I feel like I understood Lex at the end.
I think this was a “stolen from the headlines” novel. I seem to recall a large family where all the kids were severely abused.
It was interesting but not really what I wanted. This book mostly explored the after effects of this type of trauma, and I was looking more for a plot-driven “how did they get away” story.
It was interesting but not really what I wanted. This book mostly explored the after effects of this type of trauma, and I was looking more for a plot-driven “how did they get away” story.
pretty good - a little exploitative of people's real stories though.