Almost a five star read for me, I was hovering around 4.75, until we got to the twist / reveal. It immediately shot down a full star, and even then I be lower because the twist / reveal pissed me off so bad it made me feel like the book was bad the entire time. I was onboard with

the Nightmare Mother being a metaphor for racism, or child abuse, neglectful parents, the stress of being the Black family in a white neighborhood or the Black family who made it to upper middle class status, the Nightmare Mother being more focused on the oldest child as a metaphor for the pressure the oldest child to live up to the success the parents created. And honestly much more. The Nightmare Mother as metaphor would've worked and all the scenes where Ezri doubts themself, combined with their many many diagnosis would have made them an excellent unreliable narrator, one that despite questioning if they hurt those animals as a kid you're still rooting for, still sympathizing with them and their siblings and their mother who was admittedly cruel but caring in her own way, something many people can relate to. But the reveal that the Nightmare woman without a face was mostly the racist neighbor we first meet is so... girl fuck you. You just spit in my face. And the nerve to have her explain everything was like oh so you think I'm an idiot. You think I don't have critical thinking skills? That entire chapter, the biggest chapter, takes away from the entire story. Soured my whole opinion of the book.

I was even confused before the twist / reveal, but I liked what I was reading I saw where we were going, I was in for the ride. Instead I got kicked head first out of the car. And for what! The reveal made the book bad because it was a bad reveal. I don't ever even wanna reread this book, unless I can take out the last couple chapters.