I was really excited about this, and it was overall a disappointment.
I wish I liked it more. It seemed like I was going to love it. The idea behind it is terrifying. It just wasn't scary. There wasn't enough build-up for me to care about the characters very much (even Noelle, despite her being someone I should absolutely like and it being written in first person) and there was a lot of action, but it wasn't very exciting. And it wasn't scary. How do you make a murderous clown stalking people through a house not scary?
On a super specific note, I don't believe she didn't recognize the name when she got the clown's card. I recognized it immediately and she's supposed to be a huge horror movie buff.
The romance was kind of cute? The author did a good job of making them not get distracted from the murderous clown while still having a few moments.
The inclusion of the horror movie quotes and the general horror movie buff status of the author was a lot of fun, admittedly. Noelle's desire to be the Final Girl was intense and appropriate for someone super into horror movies and she made some clever decisions based on what was going on. Genre savviness is a neat thing to see in a horror novel.
The reasoning behind the attacks and the amount of talking about it was kind of bizarre. There were a lot of talking points made there, and I don't disagree with them (well, obviously I disagree with the clown--murder is kind of a wild reaction to basically anything), but they were doing a lot of talking during that last stretch. A lot more talking than it seems like a murderous clown would be willing to take the time to do. A lot of debating that slowed down the pace and any terror. If it had been spread out more throughout the book it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but throwing it basically all in the ending scene was a strange choice.
I just wish there was more emotion overall. I wanted to care, I wanted to be scared, I wanted to be scared for the characters and I never was.