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michaelmay 's review for:
Horrid
by Katrina Leno
I'm a sucker for any horror-ish story that begins with a family being forced to relocate to a creepy old house outside a small town. The reason for the move is often the death of a parent, but very rarely does the story itself focus as hard on the mourning of that death as Horrid does. For whatever ghostly, gothic elements it has, it's really a book about grief and trauma and mental health.
I liked that and enjoyed going back and forth trying to decide whether Jane's experiences in her mother's childhood home are supernatural or in her head. Both were compelling ideas to me, though my preference is always going to be for a ghost story.
Leno leaves it ambiguous and I would have been okay with that, but she also ends the story super abruptly with so much unresolved. Jane finishes the book with an important decision, but we see none of the consequences of that. Especially how it will impact her relationships with a lot of other characters whom I really came to like. Leno abandons those characters without thought at the end and that's the book's fatal crime.
I liked that and enjoyed going back and forth trying to decide whether Jane's experiences in her mother's childhood home are supernatural or in her head. Both were compelling ideas to me, though my preference is always going to be for a ghost story.
Leno leaves it ambiguous and I would have been okay with that, but she also ends the story super abruptly with so much unresolved. Jane finishes the book with an important decision, but we see none of the consequences of that. Especially how it will impact her relationships with a lot of other characters whom I really came to like. Leno abandons those characters without thought at the end and that's the book's fatal crime.