Overall Take:
Great contemporary read but not really horror as marketed
Star Rating:
4 Stars
Genre:
Contemporary
Synopsis:
Leigh Somerset wants some quality time with her kids before they grow up so they set out on a road trip. They’re driving from Milwaukee to Orlando, Florida with a few stops along the way. They get off to a rocky start when they stumble upon a half-burned farmhouse in Indiana. Then there’s the creepy indoor waterpark, and the paranormal plagued Cracker Barrells. Nothing like some horror-tinged family bonding, right?
Thoughts:
This is a hard book to rate because it is not at all what I expected. I was expecting a light horror, and in a sense, I guess you could consider it that. But this is a book I would let my 6 year old read, it’s that light of horror. I was expecting a more darkly haunted road trip that I could really sink my teeth into, but again, this book is not scary, and I’d venture to say it isn’t even creepy. It has a light haunting. If you could even categorize it at that. However, the writing is fun. I enjoyed the antics that this family had as part of their road trip. It was funny at times, though again not quite as funny as I expected going into it. Not bad, just didn’t meet expectations. If I were categorizing this book I would just go with contemporary fiction because it really is about a family coming together over the course of a road trip, and there is nothing wrong with that.
If you’ve read other books by this author, I think you will need to reframe your expectations as well because the paranormal element is not really present in this one like her others. I adored Suburban Hell for that reason.
Publication Date:
September 10, 2024
Author:
Maureen Kilmer
Page Length:
320 pages
Publisher:
GP Putnam Sons
Thank you to:
Thank you to @PRHAudio for the audio version of this book. All thoughts are my own.
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