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wordwrought 's review for:
Suburban Hell
by Maureen Kilmer
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group for the ARC!
Suburban Hell is accurately marketed as Bad Moms meets My Best Friend's Exorcism, although I think I'd actually throw The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires in there too. The concept of a group of suburban moms fighting a demon in their quiet neighborhood is exactly my niche of horror-comedy and I very much enjoyed the execution!
There were parts of this that I LOVED. Some of the interactions with the other moms, the general premise of moms having to run around caring for kids while also learning how to do an exorcism, the actually scary scenes -- all super fun. I also loved that we jumped pretty much right into the conflict! No slow beginnings here.
My biggest issue with the book was that the final conflict seemed really anticlimactic. It was resolved really quickly, considering how much havoc the demon was wreaking, and kind of felt like the author wasn't really sure exactly how to execute the climax. The very last scene was brilliant, though.
I also feel that the theme -- "suburban moms save the world" -- could have been better reinforced with more conflict directly around that concept. There were some offhand remarks about moms being expected to do all the labor, and Liz's husband Tim sucked, but overall, if the author was seeking to empower suburban moms, some more contrast to that idea would have helped drive it home. (This is a double edged sword, though, because I did appreciate that Amy's husband, for instance, wasn't a total dickhead and that she didn't resent her kids, which stories about suburban women can sometimes turn into.)
Overall, though, the concept and the bond of friendship between the ladies was very enjoyable and enough to keep me reading through some of what I thought were the weaker points of the book.
Suburban Hell is accurately marketed as Bad Moms meets My Best Friend's Exorcism, although I think I'd actually throw The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires in there too. The concept of a group of suburban moms fighting a demon in their quiet neighborhood is exactly my niche of horror-comedy and I very much enjoyed the execution!
There were parts of this that I LOVED. Some of the interactions with the other moms, the general premise of moms having to run around caring for kids while also learning how to do an exorcism, the actually scary scenes -- all super fun. I also loved that we jumped pretty much right into the conflict! No slow beginnings here.
My biggest issue with the book was that the final conflict seemed really anticlimactic. It was resolved really quickly, considering how much havoc the demon was wreaking, and kind of felt like the author wasn't really sure exactly how to execute the climax. The very last scene was brilliant, though.
I also feel that the theme -- "suburban moms save the world" -- could have been better reinforced with more conflict directly around that concept. There were some offhand remarks about moms being expected to do all the labor, and Liz's husband Tim sucked, but overall, if the author was seeking to empower suburban moms, some more contrast to that idea would have helped drive it home. (This is a double edged sword, though, because I did appreciate that Amy's husband, for instance, wasn't a total dickhead and that she didn't resent her kids, which stories about suburban women can sometimes turn into.)
Overall, though, the concept and the bond of friendship between the ladies was very enjoyable and enough to keep me reading through some of what I thought were the weaker points of the book.