M. Verano

What's It About?
an American teen recounts the strange events that occur after she moves into a new—and very haunted—home with her family in this chilling diary that features photos and images of what she experienced.

Letters, photographs, and a journal…all left behind in the harrowing aftermath. Following her parents’ high-profile divorce, Paige and her brother are forced to move to Idaho with their mother, and Paige doesn’t have very high hopes for her new life. The small town show more they’ve moved to is nothing compared to the life she left behind in LA. And the situation is made even worse by the drafty old mansion they’ve rented that’s filled with spiders and plenty of other pests that Paige can’t even bear to imagine. soon, strange things start to happen around the house—one can of ravioli becomes a dozen, unreadable words start appearing on the walls, and Paige’s little brother begins roaming the house late at night. And there’s something not right about the downstairs neighbor who seems to know a lot more than he’s letting on. Things only get creepier when she learns about the cult that conducted experimental rituals in the house almost one hundred years earlier. The more Paige investigates, the clearer it all becomes: there’s something in the house, and whatever it is…and it won’t be backing down without a fight.

What Did I Think?
I was amazed that this was a YA book. I wondered if the author used that genre because he just couldn't bring himself to call it non-fiction.

Mr. Verano, the author, is an associate professor of history and curator of the North Idaho historical text collection. His research includes the occult and supernatural folk histories....so it was a bit of fiction and quiet a lot of truth involved in his writing of [Diary of A Haunting]. The house exists...the characters were actual residents of the house...and the psychologist testified at the trial of Paige Blanton...the main character. This all took some of the "it's just a story" out of the equation and turned it into "what really happened in that house?" Dr. Verano says he leaves it to the reader to form their own conclusions...but there are several events that just have no logical or scientific explanations.

I liked the book for what it was. An easy read with a element of goose-bumps. I would have liked for Dr. Verano to have expanded more on what he really thought had or had not actually happened. show less

"the devil everyone forgets."

ooooh man! What a wonderful, scary, creepy, freaky, haunted house story. This was a wonderful adventure. The perfect setting- an old, run down house - rented "sight unseen" because the family was leaving a bad divorce situation.

Enter - the kids. They are the first to show signs that the house is not treating them well. Logan, the younger brother, stops sleeping. There are flies swarming the entrance to the house and there are spiders in every corner. Paige and show more Logan can't seem to get text messages out or incoming phone calls.

Paige decides to start recording some of the strangeness of the house - through an on-line blog that is set to private so it's hers to write but not for others to see. And this house is CREEPY! The bugs - spiders, flies - we get daily updates as to how many she's seen. The cable keeps going out, texts messages send sometimes two to six times but they are jumbled, and there are strange 2 and 3 am meetings with her brother. Things just keep getting creepier and creepier. The best part is the not knowing - Paige is constantly out of the loop as adults and a neighbor all keep secrets from her and Logan. The more they struggle to keep from her, the more she pushes to want to know.

The overall conclusion is shocking and well done. This was a great nighttime read and perfect for October and the season. I will definitely keep reading this series! show less

Originally, while I liked the book OK, I thought the story behind the "haunted" house and the possession was very standard and a little cliché (though there were some interesting red herrings - I definitely thought Raph was a ghost, with how weird and reticent he was acting).

But once the novel hit the final few pages, once we figured out the tragic backstory behind what was happening and found out it wasn't quite over is when it really impressed me. Paige being the one possessed was, again, show more hinted at, but I thought it was residual energy from Logan, not an actual full-scale possession. The final "journal" entries were incredibly well-done, depicting someone who has absolutely no idea of what they've done either because of mental illness or something more supernatural. There maybe could have been a little bit more hints towards mental illness, but everyone saying they were worried about Paige and her not understanding why put the reader in her shoes and did work on some level.

Obviously, there were some questions left - why was Paige the one chosen as the conduit? Because she was a girl the same age as Amelia? Then why was Logan the one having seizures and not her? Why didn't it stop once they burned the letters and discovered what happened? Why did the therapist tell Paige to avoid Raph? - but definitely a pretty spooky one. show less

Picked this up for the cool cover (hard to explain, but there’s a semi transparent cover over the dust jacket). I didn’t go into this with high expectations but was pleasantly surprised. This was written as the journal entries of a teenage girl. It can be so cringey when authors go overboard trying to sound young, but this was well done! I thought it sounded very natural. Story was alright, nothing you haven’t read before if you read haunted house books. It was still enjoyable. The show more talk about spiders/flies got real repetitive. show less