Just Like Home

"This is my home," she said. "And you're just passing through it."

Shocking and gritty - this one pulled me in and never let up.

Vera has been called back home. Her mom is sick and her father's already gone. She needs to help her mom and work on the house before she is gone. Because Vera's family isn't like other families. They have a past - with this town and with this house. And Vera needs to try to protect her family before it all goes wildly out of control.

It's great to go into this one a little blind. I did this as an audio book and I can't recommend the narrator enough - it was so good! I liked letting the secrets and the twists slowly reveal themselves. I found the reveals shocking and I didn't anticipate any twists, I was so show more sucked into the story!

This one was great, I can't wait to read more from this author! show less

When her dying, estranged mother calls Vera back home, she packs her life into her car and drives cross-country. If that wasn't strange enough...it gets better. The house she is returning to was built by her father...who was...ready for this?...an infamous serial killer. She also finds an artist, who could well be described as a parasite, renting a space in the backyard shed. His plan is to “collaborate” with the house’s psychic residues. Between her ailing mother’s cruel mood swings, and this artist creep consuming her childhood memories for "inspiration"...the legacy of her father’s love along with his crimes, dd the creepy Crowder house itself derail Vera’s attempts to settle the estate rapidly as she had hoped. The house show more is filled with secrets, lies, and rot: what else lurks beneath those glossy floorboards is anybody's guess. Another book review describes this story perfectly "This is visceral gothic horror story dedicated to everyone who ever loved a monster.” Nothing in the book gets any easier as the story goes on. The family's drama is full of cruelty, fear, betrayal, and nightmares. The reader begins to understand that there is more than one monster in Crowder House. Overall: I did very much enjoy the story even though it felt a tad uneven, for lack of a better description...in places...but it does leave an unsettling feeling in the atmosphere along with a delightful chill on the back of your neck...so what more could you really ask for from a good horror story? show less

This is not your usual haunted house story or serial killer thriller. Where do I begin? 1) My jaw hurts because I was clenching it as I read every page; 2) Sarah Gailey created scenes that were SO vivid and dark that I was thinking about them long after reading, especially once the lights were turned off and it was time for sleep! 3) This book made me question traditional ideas of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, loyalty vs. betrayal -- what family means, if forgiveness is possible, and what is the true meaning of home? It made me question all of these things in a deeply disturbing, sometimes gory way, but I loved it despite my sore shoulders and neck from being so tensed out. I also don't think I'll ever think of grease in the same way show more again after this one! This was perfection. show less

oof! what a book. based on other reviews this is very much a love it or hate it book. you're not going to kinda like this. but this was a huge win for me. this had so many things i love/look for in a thriller/horror book like a main character with a dark past, a dysfunctional family, body horror!, claustrophobic - i didn't even know that that was a feeling authors could make you feel through WORDS! and unexpected plot points i never saw coming. i said what the actual heck many times while reading this one. this book truly disturbed me.. in the best way. it was smart, awkward and haunting. it reminds me of this Stephen King quote: “Monsters are real and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”

Ooh! What a deliciously creepy book this is! It resists definition at every turn. Just when I thought I'd figured out what it was about, something---usually bizarre---would happen, and I'd have to regroup. It's filled with the thing I find scariest and love most about scary books: that moment I sit on the edge of my bed and put my foot on the floor and feel the cold anticipation that something is about to grasp my ankle from under the bed.

Sarah Gailey is a must-read author for me, and Just Like Home once again proves why - every genre they choose to tackle feels like the one they have been writing in forever. Their prose is gorgeous, their protagonists complicated and unforgettable, and their stories take me places I couldn't imagine.

This particular novel is fully gothic horror, with the creepy house, the potentially dangerous stranger, the mother near death - all the things the genre requires. But because it's Gailey, it's so much more - lonliness, anger, jealousy, and the core question, "Who is the monster". This is a slow burn, so be prepared to be patient, soak in the atmosphere, and wait for the scares to start.

Absolutely effective, wildly unsettling horror. I've had a while to sit on the twists and turns of the narrative, and I honestly still don't know quite which way is up. Lots of body/gore horror and plenty of the quieter, psychological horror and mystery of terrible familial relationships and confused adolescence.