The first like 70 pages I was convinced I had the wrong book. There was genuinely nothing scary about it. It was just rehashing pointless relationship drama over and over, which was so boring. I didn't feel anything towards the characters because the dialogue went so fast and had no substance. The climax of the book where they perform the ritual tried to hard to be frightening and did not hit the mark. If I was supposed to feel bad for Talia for being possessed, I didn't. This was advertised on the blurbs on the back and on booktok as a scary horror book, so that's what I was expecting. The parts in the middle where Cat was seeing the ghost around her literally added no scare factor. The house lore also made no sense and was not fleshed out at all. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because it had obvious potential and the author was trying. I think this would have been more effective as a whole novel instead of a novella. It was trying to be 2 things at once: a relationship drama and horror story and left no time for the scary part to be fleshed out enough to the point where it would actually be scary. A week after reading this I found another copy at a thrift store and laughed because I felt it's where it belonged.

It's a classic I guess, but I found it boring and not scary. Read it for school so maybe I'd enjoy it more on my own time.

Read this short story for school and still think about it a lot. I was surprised when I found this was written by Roald Dahl. The duality of man. Perfect crime, great main woman character, and scary.

I can't even fully explain why I don't like this book, but whenever someone brings it up I make a case on not liking it. It's a classic, it just doesn't hit for me. Read it for school and the only thing I remember discussing about it was whether or not we agreed with it being pulled from curriculums as required reading, so...

Always a 5 star read