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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"I am not a lost lamb. I am a black sheep."
This line alone will make this a must recommend book.
Diavola was not at all what I expected, in the best way. Anna is a bitch and I absolutely adore her. This book is for everyone who sees their mom's name pop up on the phone and immediately dread it.
This line alone will make this a must recommend book.
Diavola was not at all what I expected, in the best way. Anna is a bitch and I absolutely adore her. This book is for everyone who sees their mom's name pop up on the phone and immediately dread it.
3 stars was the best rating I could give this. It was a pretty silly ghost story. Had good humor and pretty good suspense. However, I felt like when the main character (sorry, spoilers) returned back home with the ghost, it kinda lost me. It felt like the story switched or went off course during the writing process and I was just fully expecting something else. Like how in shows or movies who have lazy storylines and just certain characters don’t appear anymore but are only mentioned? Yeah that’s how it felt when the entire family (whom I felt like their presence was pretty important to the storyline) just went back to their homes and that was it. Only phone calls to the main character was all that happened but seriously nothing else. Just brief “mentions” and never show up again. Like “okay so all that during their stay in Italy was for nothing” feeling. Didn’t hear much about what happened to them other than “yeah their lives suck now” but THATS IT. I did like the ending though, left me satisfied. Could’ve been better honestly. I can’t say I HATED it but it was more like a “yeah that’s a book I read” feeling.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
medium-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:
Yes
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Diavola balances on the line of an interesting question - what is scarier, the haunted Italian villa, or the family vacationing there?
I have seen negative reviews circling around the unlikable characters and the protagonist that seems to try at every opportunity to alienate the reader rather than give them someone to identify with and project into. The family dynamics feel like when you’re watching a sitcom and internally screaming, “Oh my god just TALK TO EACHOTHER!”
And it’s true - but the way history of the villa crept in around this squabbling family may not have worked if they were a strong united front. For my money, it was interesting in itself to watch the haunting unfold with no one I particularly felt like rooting for apart from the kids and the cats.
Bonus points for a horror novel set in Italy that never veered into Catholic priest/exorcism territory.
This one is worth a read - a page turner that doesn’t give you a clean cut hero or a fairy tale ending - if you’re into that.
I have seen negative reviews circling around the unlikable characters and the protagonist that seems to try at every opportunity to alienate the reader rather than give them someone to identify with and project into. The family dynamics feel like when you’re watching a sitcom and internally screaming, “Oh my god just TALK TO EACHOTHER!”
And it’s true - but the way history of the villa crept in around this squabbling family may not have worked if they were a strong united front. For my money, it was interesting in itself to watch the haunting unfold with no one I particularly felt like rooting for apart from the kids and the cats.
Bonus points for a horror novel set in Italy that never veered into Catholic priest/exorcism territory.
This one is worth a read - a page turner that doesn’t give you a clean cut hero or a fairy tale ending - if you’re into that.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
The real horror here was the family, and honestly, they were way more unsettling than anything supernatural. The tension and toxicity were thick, but the pacing dragged in spots, which dulled the impact. Still, it had just enough creepy moments to keep me turning the pages, but the conclusion was a bit silly in my opinion.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
if you liked this book, please turn away. i'm not yucking your yum. i'm mad that my yum turned into a yuck.
alternative title: go to therapy so that the ghosts can scare the reader. considering how beautiful and haunting the cover is, i was expecting big scares and not a family drama that just happens to have ghosts hanging around. everyone uses the main character as their emotional punching bag. like she's pretentious and annoying but these people bullied her for existing and are equally annoying, if not more so. they constantly bring up shit that happened years and years ago, they're passive aggressive as fuck, and they get upset about things that didn't happen. there's so much unresolved shit that had nothing to do with the ghosts like there was a random anti-choice sermon in an italian church???? 🥴 why and what was the point of this. in fact, what was the point of a lot of the things that happened??
another reviewer said that this was "an infuriating book written for 'it’s wine o’clock somewhere' 'normal ppl scare me' type millennial women" which could not be more accurate. my last retail job used to attract these type of women all the fucking time and this is exactly the type of book catered to middle class white american women who think that hoarding rae dunn's cheapass shit and shopping at homegoods is equivalent to owning william sonoma items. i can imagine anna and her family yelling at me at the register for not wrapping their mass-produced $10 plate the way they want me to. italians would probably be offended by this book because it was so overtly pompous in a way that was like "rich white americans live-love-laugh'ing all over a country foreign to them." none of these issues were challenged. if there was an attempt to satirize their ignorance or challenge their tax-evading asses, i would have given this another star but these people just live like this. there were no scares, mostly a lot of irritating shit happening in the family that overshadowed all the creep factor.
i'd like to think that the ridiculous family drama annoyed the ghosts so much so that they couldn't do their jobs in scaring the reader 🤣
alternative title: go to therapy so that the ghosts can scare the reader. considering how beautiful and haunting the cover is, i was expecting big scares and not a family drama that just happens to have ghosts hanging around. everyone uses the main character as their emotional punching bag. like she's pretentious and annoying but these people bullied her for existing and are equally annoying, if not more so. they constantly bring up shit that happened years and years ago, they're passive aggressive as fuck, and they get upset about things that didn't happen. there's so much unresolved shit that had nothing to do with the ghosts like there was a random anti-choice sermon in an italian church???? 🥴 why and what was the point of this. in fact, what was the point of a lot of the things that happened??
another reviewer said that this was "an infuriating book written for 'it’s wine o’clock somewhere' 'normal ppl scare me' type millennial women" which could not be more accurate. my last retail job used to attract these type of women all the fucking time and this is exactly the type of book catered to middle class white american women who think that hoarding rae dunn's cheapass shit and shopping at homegoods is equivalent to owning william sonoma items. i can imagine anna and her family yelling at me at the register for not wrapping their mass-produced $10 plate the way they want me to. italians would probably be offended by this book because it was so overtly pompous in a way that was like "rich white americans live-love-laugh'ing all over a country foreign to them." none of these issues were challenged. if there was an attempt to satirize their ignorance or challenge their tax-evading asses, i would have given this another star but these people just live like this. there were no scares, mostly a lot of irritating shit happening in the family that overshadowed all the creep factor.
i'd like to think that the ridiculous family drama annoyed the ghosts so much so that they couldn't do their jobs in scaring the reader 🤣