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A review by capnlinnius
It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan
5.0
I received an eARC from the publisher, through NetGalley.
Rated just shy of a 5! 4.5/5 but rounded up, because wow did I love the second half of this.
This was A Ride.
In short: Samantha grew up with her older sister Elizabeth and their mother in a haunted manor by a great swamp, living alongside the memories of those who lived there before them. As adults, both sisters find themselves moving back in temporarily for two different reasons. Elizabeth is eight months pregnant and is separating from her husband, and Samantha starts to see a new ghost in the house more and more frequently; that of a faceless boy committing cruel acts on animals, threatening the other residents, and entering into the room that has always, always remained locked.
Content warnings:
Although I admit that I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story, once I hit about 35% into it, the plot twist that grabbed me made it near impossible to put the book down after that. This felt far more like a strangely existential horror than a haunted house one, and it had some amazing House of Leaves-esque vibes, with house dimensions changing, unstable tears in the fabric of reality, and the suggestion of reality being not the shadow of what is true, but the shadow of the shadow of the shadow times infinity, and how inevitability seems to be the only constant.
In the end, I enjoyed this immensely, and the only reason it didn't hit a full 5 for me was that it felt a little unbalanced, with too much time spent on setting up the premise for my tastes. I will definitely keep an eye out for future releases from this author!
Rated just shy of a 5! 4.5/5 but rounded up, because wow did I love the second half of this.
This was A Ride.
In short: Samantha grew up with her older sister Elizabeth and their mother in a haunted manor by a great swamp, living alongside the memories of those who lived there before them. As adults, both sisters find themselves moving back in temporarily for two different reasons. Elizabeth is eight months pregnant and is separating from her husband, and Samantha starts to see a new ghost in the house more and more frequently; that of a faceless boy committing cruel acts on animals, threatening the other residents, and entering into the room that has always, always remained locked.
Content warnings:
Spoiler
Graphic depictions: A bird is tortured and killed, a suicide takes place, alcoholism (parent), domestic abuse. Alluded to: abuse of former slaves, sexual assault.Although I admit that I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story, once I hit about 35% into it, the plot twist that grabbed me made it near impossible to put the book down after that. This felt far more like a strangely existential horror than a haunted house one, and it had some amazing House of Leaves-esque vibes, with house dimensions changing, unstable tears in the fabric of reality, and the suggestion of reality being not the shadow of what is true, but the shadow of the shadow of the shadow times infinity, and how inevitability seems to be the only constant.
In the end, I enjoyed this immensely, and the only reason it didn't hit a full 5 for me was that it felt a little unbalanced, with too much time spent on setting up the premise for my tastes. I will definitely keep an eye out for future releases from this author!