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A review by cafeyre
One by One by D. W. Gillespie
4.0
Alice is a ten years old girl who together with her parents and older brother moves to the new house. The house is bigger, older, surrounded by forest and completely different than her old house. No one besides the father is pleased about moving in there. They were happy with the old house but as the father wanted to change something in their lives to fix the situation they are in, everyone agreed with him. Alice has a hard time to settle down and call this place her house. Her only reason to try is her father who is very excited about it.
First days are going by quiet and without any problems until they find an old drawing on the wall. The drawing portraits a family that looks just like her: mother, father, son, and daughter. The only difference is a dog on the picture since they have a cat. They decide to leave it be as it must be a drawing done by the old family’s children. The game changes when after few days of absence their cat is found dead and they found a recent painted black X on the dog.
Parents don’t want to believe their kids that none of them has done it just to scare the rest of the family. Alice, on the other hand, starts to suspect that something needs to be wrong with the house. One day she finds a book in her room that appeared from nowhere, which turns out to be a diary of the girl that was living here before their family. It wasn’t the weirdest thing that happened in this house. The real nightmare begins when her family members start disappearing one by one.
My thoughts:
I honestly thought it will be the same story as all the horror movies I watched and that’s how it looked to be for the more than half of the book. The family moves to the haunted house and weird things start to happen. Nope, I am sorry to say that but it’s not a story like this and I am very happy about it. The story kept me in the dart ¾ of the book and surprised me more than I expected.
Let’s start with the characters. Alice, the youngest and the protagonist in the book, is kind of a loner who most of the time daydream. She is closed for most of the people but tries to open more on her family. Her parents aren’t perfect, but they love their kids and tries to give them a life they deserve. Her father starts to act differently because of the stress that is a result of all the things that happens in the house. I think it’s only because he wanted to fix their family, give them a new start and a better life. With the time it turned out to be harder than he thought. Her brother Dean is an easy-going teenager who seems to care only about himself but with the time we can see that he cares a lot about his little sister and parents. However, her mother Debra is one of my favorite characters. I don’t know even why she just made me like her in the beginning and it stayed this way.
The story isn’t the most unique one however the ending was more than original. It was brilliant. I fell for it and couldn’t stop reading the last 50 pages when the main action happened. For these 50 pages, I am more than happy that I requested this book and finally read it. Exactly for this ending you need to read this book right away when it will be published. If you like mystery and horror books you will enjoy it.
As I don’t have much time during the day, I mostly read this book at night. It wasn’t the best choice of the time of the day for this book. I was running to the bathroom before going to sleep because I suddenly was afraid that something is around and will kill me. Don’t get me wrong, I love horrors but when you read a good one, it just stays in my mind and I can’t even look in the mirror because I am scared something will be behind me. As funny and scary it is for me, I still love to get into this late-night dark mood.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing me this copy in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed this book a lot and I can’t wait to read more books written by D.W. Gillespie.
First days are going by quiet and without any problems until they find an old drawing on the wall. The drawing portraits a family that looks just like her: mother, father, son, and daughter. The only difference is a dog on the picture since they have a cat. They decide to leave it be as it must be a drawing done by the old family’s children. The game changes when after few days of absence their cat is found dead and they found a recent painted black X on the dog.
Parents don’t want to believe their kids that none of them has done it just to scare the rest of the family. Alice, on the other hand, starts to suspect that something needs to be wrong with the house. One day she finds a book in her room that appeared from nowhere, which turns out to be a diary of the girl that was living here before their family. It wasn’t the weirdest thing that happened in this house. The real nightmare begins when her family members start disappearing one by one.
My thoughts:
I honestly thought it will be the same story as all the horror movies I watched and that’s how it looked to be for the more than half of the book. The family moves to the haunted house and weird things start to happen. Nope, I am sorry to say that but it’s not a story like this and I am very happy about it. The story kept me in the dart ¾ of the book and surprised me more than I expected.
Let’s start with the characters. Alice, the youngest and the protagonist in the book, is kind of a loner who most of the time daydream. She is closed for most of the people but tries to open more on her family. Her parents aren’t perfect, but they love their kids and tries to give them a life they deserve. Her father starts to act differently because of the stress that is a result of all the things that happens in the house. I think it’s only because he wanted to fix their family, give them a new start and a better life. With the time it turned out to be harder than he thought. Her brother Dean is an easy-going teenager who seems to care only about himself but with the time we can see that he cares a lot about his little sister and parents. However, her mother Debra is one of my favorite characters. I don’t know even why she just made me like her in the beginning and it stayed this way.
The story isn’t the most unique one however the ending was more than original. It was brilliant. I fell for it and couldn’t stop reading the last 50 pages when the main action happened. For these 50 pages, I am more than happy that I requested this book and finally read it. Exactly for this ending you need to read this book right away when it will be published. If you like mystery and horror books you will enjoy it.
As I don’t have much time during the day, I mostly read this book at night. It wasn’t the best choice of the time of the day for this book. I was running to the bathroom before going to sleep because I suddenly was afraid that something is around and will kill me. Don’t get me wrong, I love horrors but when you read a good one, it just stays in my mind and I can’t even look in the mirror because I am scared something will be behind me. As funny and scary it is for me, I still love to get into this late-night dark mood.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing me this copy in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed this book a lot and I can’t wait to read more books written by D.W. Gillespie.