4.5

Vera is called back to her childhood home to care for her dying mother. Despite their estrangement, she obliges, moves back into her childhood bedroom. The home where her father killed has been turned into an attraction, complete with a leeching artist who lives in the back, stripping the house away bit by bit. It's true, the rot is settled deep into the house's bones. But Vera can't let it end like this, she has to protect it. There's just no place like home.

I was expecting a run of the mill haunted house book peppered with familial drama. Just Like Home dug far deeper, highlighting Vera’s relationships with her parents: why one was so full of life and love and the other tarnished with grease, rot. The coldness sucked me in immediately.

Gailey takes classic horror tropes and turns them on their head, mashing them together into a pulsing narrative that seems to take on life, feels real. I don’t think the story would feel this way if not for the visceral writing style, the pointed way in which the plot is presented. All of these pieces work in tandem, creating a harmonious nightmare: oozing, unsettling, sinister. Ready to gobble you up if you’re not careful, if you don’t respect the house.