Episode 13 - Review

Author: Craig DiLouie

Genre:  Horror

Format: Paperback

This one has been on my physical TBR for ages. In fact, I've started it a couple of times, only to put it away a few pages in. Sometimes it's just not the right time for certain books. On one hand, I'm glad I waited for this book because I did like it. On the other hand, I don't think it needed to be this long. There are whole sections that I just didn't care about, and parts where there would have been brilliant tension. Only to be shafted. So really, this was a mixed bag for me. 

Let's get one thing super clear. This book is said to be like The Haunting of Hill House; that is incorrect. It's with a ghost that has more than one timeline involved. It is nothing like Hill House at all. At no point while reading this book was a I scared, or was jumped scared, or worried, or anything of things that Haunting of Hill House made me. This is the book that you yell at the whole time. I was constantly, out loud, asking Why are we going back into the house. Why are we going down the creepy well? All of us have seen Scooby-Doo: stop splitting up!

That is the type of book this is. Listen, I get it, there's a mystery, and I'm nosey. I would totally want to go through those files. I'll tell you what, though. I wouldn't wait two hundred pages for things to go flying around the room to read them. Also, it's totally cool you have Claire, the skeptic who thinks ghosts are dumb and defy science; therefore, they can't be real. We all need one of those people in our lives. We do. However! There was science in that room, woman! SCIENCE! And I'm meant to believe she's gonna wait until a near-death experience to actually look at it.

Cool. Cool. Cool.

Now, I totally get it, you are all crazy, and you wanted to know what the actual hell is going on. So you go down the creepy well. Fine. FINE! But there were a handful of missed moments here. Like the people who where suppose to come help them back out of the well. Why didn't we get their point of view? Just a few pages of them trying to find all the missing people. Because all their stuff is still there. One of them is a single mother. Like, I have many questions.

The ending was fine with what was 'causing' the haunting. It gets four stars from me for the very end of the book. I really loved the open ending and how they got some of the information. It definitely wins points for me there. But as a whole, I've read better epistolary novels about haunted houses and weird time zones. What I will say though was I did like the writing style of this book. So I'll definitely give Craig DiLouie another try. But this one was just okay. I liked it, but not as good as I wanted it to be.

   HAPPY READING!!