Monday, September 5, 2016

Dairy of a Haunting by M. Verano (Dairy of a Haunting #1)

Title: Dairy of a Haunting

Author: M. Verano

Pages: 313 (hardcover)

Synopsis: "When Paige moves from LA to Idaho with her mom and little brother after her parents’ high-profile divorce, she expects to completely hate her new life, and the small town doesn’t disappoint. Worse yet, the drafty old mansion they’ve rented is infested with flies, spiders, and other pests Paige doesn’t want to think about.

She chalks it up to her rural surroundings, but it’s harder to ignore the strange things happening around the house, from one can of ravioli becoming a dozen, to unreadable words appearing in the walls. Soon Paige’s little brother begins roaming the house at all hours of the night, and there’s something not right about the downstairs neighbor, who knows a lot more than he’s letting on. 

Things only get creepier when she learns about the sinister cult that conducted experimental rituals in the house almost a hundred years earlier.
The more Paige investigates, and the deeper she digs, the clearer it all becomes: whatever is in the house, whatever is causing all the strange occurrences, has no intention of backing down without a fight.

Found in the aftermath, Diary of a Haunting collects the journal entries, letters, and photographs Paige left behind." -Goodreads


I am not a huge fan of horror in books because I am very easily frightened, but when I do end up reading a horror novel, I tend to really enjoy them after getting past the fact that I'm scared half senseless.

This book was told in dairy/journal entries, so the writing style is pretty simplistic. The writing style worked well for the way the story was executed, and though took a few chapters to get the hang of, I could easily immerse myself in the story.

The book had this overall creepiness to it that could send chills down your spine at certain points, and the characters were a strange mix of people. In the beginning, you know very little about them, but as you read each page, you start to uncover depths about them that you wouldn't have originally expected.

I didn't exactly connect to the characters in this story, but I've never experienced anything like it before. I could feel sympathy towards them and grieve with them, but I couldn't actually relate to anything they were going through. I'm not complaining about not being able to relate to them, but if you don't enjoy books were you can't relate to the characters then maybe this isn't for you.

The main, and really only issue I had with this story was how open ended it was. There were lose ends that needed to be tied up, but because this book is supposedly based on a true story the ending makes sense. I understand why the story ended with so many possibilities that could unfold, but I didn't really enjoy that openness so I couldn't give it 5 stars.



Do you like horror stories?




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