Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Graphic: Death, Racism, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Drug use, Car accident, Alcohol
Minor: Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Incest, Sexual content, Stalking, Lesbophobia, Deportation
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Vomit, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Incest, Racism, Self harm, Slavery, Grief, Religious bigotry
Graphic: Cursing, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Classism
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Deportation
Minor: Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body horror, Bullying, Drug use, Incest, Physical abuse, Self harm, Lesbophobia
Graphic: Confinement, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Classism
Moderate: Drug abuse, Incest, Vomit, Police brutality, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Homophobia, Slavery, Abandonment
(On the topic of descriptions, I will say I got a bit annoyed at the sheer number of times we had to be reminded that the protagonists are like REALLY ugly, but, that’s not a super big deal I guess.)
Secondly, I just thought the premise was really interesting. I love stories that center around houses, and a creepy, almost-sentient, potentially cursed house? I’m all in.
What didn’t necessarily work for me: often I find that when I’m reading fantasy/fantasy-adjacent YA stories, I have to remind myself over and over “these are children,” because they’ll be like, crime bosses and speak like adults (*cough* six of crows *cough*), but this story I had the opposite experience: for some reason, I kept having to remind myself “this isn’t YA; these are adults” again and again.
I think it was the plot elements. An impoverished, smart-mouthed, scrappy young criminal that has to do what it takes to raise their sibling on account of dead/absent parents reads very YA to me. (And I feel like Opal speaks a lot like a teenager too.) It was just something that took me out of the story every time I was reminded “oh that’s right, they’re meant to be in their mid-late 20s!”
Overall, if I was rating the like, first 60-70% of the book, I’d give it a solid 4.25/4.5 stars. The pacing was admittedly really slow, but idk, I liked it (especially the slow-burn romance with the broody man alone in his old house; that’s my kryptonite).
But the last quarter of the book I’d probably only rate like a 2.75/3. The part that was meant to be the most thrilling/climactic moment seemed to stretch on for way longer than it needed to and I just kept thinking “is it really not over YET?” which was disappointing.
The big reveal is sort of just one long info-dump, but at the same time I also see WHY it was done that way given how everyone’s different partly-correct versions of the truth get peppered throughout the story. It was like at the end the actual truth had to be laid out in a similar manner. But it still felt a bit… idk, lazily tacked on?
So… mixed feelings! Lol.
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Chronic illness, Vomit, Stalking
Minor: Incest, Self harm, Slavery