Horrid

I'm not much of a horror genre reader, and with a name like Horrid, I admit I was a little nervous going in. And then the initial page had me questioning "what just happened." I honestly wasn't sure what I was getting into or if I would enjoy it. But I soldiered on, and WOW... I am so glad I did! It didn't take long, and I was hooked.

The book follows Jane and Ruth, who have to move from California to Maine after Greer, Jane's dad, dies. Grief is a main theme, and I appreciated how well it was written. Jane deals with the loss of her father, and while we don't get her point of view, Ruth is dealing with her own grief throughout the entire book as well. I loved the Agatha Christie references and while I both did and didn't see it coming, show more the twist was just spooky enough to make me shudder but not scary enough to give me nightmares. show less

Overall, I enjoyed this eerie YA tale of a troubled teen dealing with the grief of losing her father. Jane and her mom end up back in their creepy ancestral home in Maine where family ghosts and generational trauma add to Jane's mental anguish.

I'm torn over the ending though —

As a straight up horror novel, the ending was fitting, BUT I wanted something more... Maybe more character growth from Jane?

She couldn't remember the first book she had eaten.

This book is about so many things and yet manages to be about absolutely nothing... I felt this frustration from start to finish, because looking at this structually, everything should have come together and paid off in a way that felt good, but instead to me it was just incredibly flimsy.

I loved so many aspects - the book-eating, the genius connection to the Agatha Christie book, that eerie ending, and especially Jane's battle with her uncontrollable rage which I've never seen addressed so unflinchingly before - but they didn't get handled with the justice I thought they deserved. I also hated how it would desperately try to point at its own clues and make sure I didn't miss them, when show more they were some pretty sloppy clues to begin with.

This author definitely has a loyal readership so maybe I'm just missing something, or the style was really not up my alley. Regardless, I know that this book is gonna be flying off shelves because of that STUNNING cover alone. show less

This was a 2.5 for me. A lot of interesting ideas (although I’d say plenty of false advertising too) but probably the biggest issue in my opinion is that the book takes FOREVER to get moving. I was well past 50% by the time it felt like we were getting anywhere near the meat of the story and then it just ends. I feel like the first half could have been edited or completely removed and more could have been written to actually finish it.

The genre is a bit misleading too. If you can’t do horror this book will still be just fine. It’s maybe mildly creepy at first but really it just hinges on the idea that a teenager isn’t going to use the internet AT ALL for anything she’s curious about, ever. For this to work we need better show more reasons to buy into that.

I sound harsh but I don’t hate this book, I just wish it would have built more on it’s strong points instead of mashing contemporary YA into what I assume was to be a horror story? show less

4.25/5

this was a very cool exploration of family grief and individual processing of trauma, all encased in a very specific rose-garden horror that i just love

First let me judge this book by it's cover...it is absolutely stunning and fits with the book so well. Honestly one of the best cover choices I have seen in quite some time.

Now to the book. Horrid is the story of a girl, Jane, and her mom move to Maine (I blame Stephen King for horror books being set in Maine as totally believable in every aspect) after the death of her father. Slowly the truth of the house and the mystery behind it begins unraveling.

The book is well written and the pages just flow. I found myself really enjoying the portrayal of Jane, specifically her attitude towards her anxious behaviors. There were also portions that I found truly eerie which is hard to do so beautifully.

It's great to see a wonderfully written show more horror YA book and I highly recommend it!

(I won a copy of this book in a NOVL promotion) show less

3.5 Stars

I feel like I loved this book, but then 2 minutes later I feel like I didn’t?? I’m having a weird time trying to figure it out.

I think the reasoning for that is that the story and atmosphere are freaking awesome, but I wanted the side characters to mean more to the story and they just didn’t. The ending is very abrupt, and I’m a fan of an open/gotcha ending, but I wanted this one to have MORE leading up to that. It would’ve been cool if the mother, friends, and co-worker were somehow more connected to the things happening at the end— but it ended up that they were all MIA and kind of pointless to where the story went. But bonus points to ZERO romance!!

I definitely have feelings of “damnnnn girl” and I like show more that— I just wish this story was a tad more fleshed out. It sort of feels like it could’ve been a short story or one of those campfire tales instead of a full-fledged book. show less