Another day, another salty review. This is gonna be a long one.

The first book I read by this author was Letters to the Lost. I loved it. When I picked up the companion the next year, I was left disappointed. It followed a character I'd loved in LTTL, but I just didn't connect with the story or his love interest.
I'm also in the minority with A Curse So Dark and Lonely. I didn't love it nearly as much as everyone else seems to. Even so, when I heard about this book, I was optimistic. I was hopeful that she would be getting back to what I loved about LTTL: strong characters working through their grief and the consequences of their choices.
Now, after finished CIWYW, I'm faced with the very real possibility that LTTL might just have been a fluke. Well, not the book itself, but my reaction to it. Maybe this author just isn't for me. But I do have a lot of issues with the book, so let's get into it.

For starters, nothing in this book makes any sense. The details we're fed about the different situations that lead our characters to this point feel incredibly contrived and lacking in common sense. Examples:

1. Maegan was caught cheating on the SAT prior to the events of CIWYW. She states in the book that because of her cheating, over 100 kids had their tests voided because 'there was no way for them to know how many tests were compromised.' This leads to her being ostracized by the entire school, minus her best friend who we know next to nothing about. This made zero sense to me when I read it. How would anyone else's test be 'compromised'? I expected that maybe there was more to the story. That could also be because the writing and dialogue when referring to this incident are very vague. So when we're finally let in on the details of what happened, it makes this all even more strange. So the story is: She was stressed about having to be the perfect child. She went into the SAT, sat next to a guy who she knew had already scored a 1500 on the test, and looked at his paper as he took the test. Then she was caught. Somehow, this leads to EVERYONE in the room having their tests invalidated because...reasons? Because the author needed her female protagonist isolated and cast out? I was curious enough that I looked it up and nowhere did I see anything about what the author describes actually being a thing that happens.

2. Rob's issues stem from his father conning a bunch of people out of their life savings. His father tried and failed to kill himself, which has left him in a very altered state. He can't speak or move, meaning he can't take care of himself at all. So it's been left to Rob (and his mom, but mostly Rob) to take care of him. Everyone at school hates him because they assume that he knew about his father's shady business dealings. Why? Because he was an intern at his father's company one summer. So first of all, I doubt many interns are brought in on the ILLEGAL business deals the bosses are making. That's not exactly what interns do. They get coffee, take lunch orders, make copies, deliver mail...just because Rob is the son of the boss doesn't mean he'd be given all the company secrets. Actually BECAUSE he is the son of the boss he probably wouldn't be told any of these things. If I was involved in something illegal like that, there's NO way I would want my kid to know about it. It just doesn't make sense that everyone suspects that he was in on it, except for the fact that it makes him a social pariah and the author needs him to be an outcast in order for the story to work.

3. Connor, Rob's ex-friend, treats him like shit for zero reason. He's the son of Rob's dad's partner, who turned Rob's dad in (yes, this story really is as convoluted as it seems). He spends the first 75% of this book bullying Rob, just to turn around at the end and tell Rob his dad made him cut Rob off and he really cared about him and wanted to reach out and blah, blah, blah. I'm sorry, but no. Nope. Even if Connor's dad told him not to have anything to do with Rob, it doesn't track that Connor would then resort to bullying him. The author tries to lay the groundwork early on that Connor actually does care about him in some way when Owen (another underutilized side character) throws out the 'the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference' cliche, but I'm sorry. No. The author made him too mean if it was her intent to redeem his character and their friendship. Some of the things he says to Rob are absolutely heinous, and I don't feel that character earned his redemption.

4. If Owen was always the kid eating the free cheese sandwich (like we're told later on in the book) how on Earth would his mother have had the money to invest with Rob's dad in the first place?

5. If Connor's dad knew Rob didn't have any knowledge of the illegal doings of Rob's dad, why was he so dismissive of the idea when he caught Rob in his office? It's obviously something to throw readers off the scent of Connor's dad, but in hindsight, knowing that Connor's dad was the mastermind of the whole scheme, him 'not believing' Rob doesn't make any sense. Also, the 'reveal' that Connor's dad was guilty the whole time was so anticlimactic. I'm not sure how you could get more that 25 pages into this book without assuming that Connor's dad is also guilty. Just saying.

6. Maegan is shocked that Connor actually cares about his grades and is intelligent. She assumes that he is just some jock. This is despite the fact that they are in the SAME AP Calculus class. Now, I don't know about you, but if I was just trying to skate through high school with grades good enough that I wouldn't be kicked off a sports team, AP Calc is the LAST class I'd be taking.

There are so many more non-sensical WTF moments in this mess of a book, but you get the idea.

I think my other issue with this is that there is SO. MUCH. MELODRAMA. So many angsty, unnecessary subplots all to make our hero learn a lesson I'm pretty sure I knew before I started kindergarten: stealing is wrong, and you shouldn't judge someone when you don't have all the facts.
Something this author likes to do is give her characters a ton of baggage and this book is no exception. Rob has a father who is fully reliant on other people for his day-to-day survival; his mother has been drinking too much and leaving Rob to take care of his father on his own; everyone at school hates him. Maegan isn't much better off: She was caught cheating on the SAT; everyone assumes she is a cheater (which she IS, even though the narrative tries to soften it up.); her sister has thrown the family into upheaval when she comes home from her freshman year at college pregnant with her married professor's baby which is going to cause her to lose her scholarship unless she gets an abortion but she doesn't know if she wants to get an abortion but she DOES want to go out and party and get drunk (yes, that run on sentence is intentional.). It's just a LOT. And by the end of the book everything is so convoluted that nothing feels like it was resolved in a manner that feels satisfactory.

I could go on about the things I didn't like about this book but I'd rather move on to something I'll hopefully enjoy better. Or maybe I'll go back to LTTL and see if I still feel the same way. Perhaps I'm getting to a point where angsty romances about teenagers just isn't intriguing for me anymore. For the record, I'm not trying to dismiss or downplay YA romance. I'm just acknowledging that as a woman who is closer to 40 than 20, maybe these kind of books just aren't for me any longer, and that's okay.

2.5 stars

My 'meh' attitude towards this book is that I've read several books that have done this same thing, but better. There is nothing, NOTHING original or unique about this book.

The characters all blend together for me. I was listening to the audiobook and kept getting confused as to who I was following. It was written in third person, which is fine, but the author didn't give any of these kids a unique personality. This could've been about two or three people and still have been the same book. I don't feel like I really know any of them.

Also, there was this weird thing where the author felt the need to describe everyone as they were introduced beginning with their race. "The white girl came through the door", "Two white boys were talking", "The white girl she'd seen the day before strolled over", "she was pale-faced", etc. Perhaps if I had been reading the physical copy it wouldn't have stood out so much for me, but I think the bigger problem is that every character (with one exception) is white in this book. There is one woman who is described as black, but she is in one scene and is literally pointless. She serves zero purpose in the story and we never see or hear about her again (as far as I recall. Again, all of the characters kind of blend together in this book. But the narrator gave this woman an exaggerated southernish accent, so I think I would've remembered if she showed up again.)

It was strange that every character in this book was white, because in the sexuality department, it felt like the author when to the other end of the diversity spectrum. I am all for LGBT rep in books, but it felt like the author was trying to meet some sort of marginalized rep quota and because all of her characters were white she tried to inject some sexual diversity in order to meet the quota. Also, the fact that one of these characters being bisexual is treated almost as a twist (not for the reader. It's super obvious throughout the book if you're paying even the slightest bit of attention. But one of the main characters is surprised by it because she's apparently the most un-observant person on the planet) that was thrown in during the next-to-last chapter.

Aside from all of that, I just didn't find the writing, plot, or setting compelling in the slightest. This is a story about a town surrounded by a creepy forest that may or may not be home to some sort of monster. It could have been SO GOOD. But the writing is basic. The story plays out more like a teen high school drama. It actually felt very Riverdale to me. Not season one Riverdale, but more like what the show became in subsequent seasons (a.k.a. a mess).

The plot and motivations of the characters was muddled. We are presented with a lot of exposition to explain history and characters but there are so many lapses in common sense that I cannot suspend my disbelief.

Four people set out in search of a place to settle, and they decide on an area that is home to a creepy demonic beast? WHY?! Why would they not just...go somewhere else! It makes no sense to me.

Also, the idea that these teenagers would be held to such high regard just struck me as silly. I don't care if they've got powers or whatever, I just didn't buy it.

I also wanted more from Violet's relationship with her mother. There's no real growth in their relationship throughout the book and then because of a plot contrivance everything is all forgiven at the end. It felt like a cheat, totally unearned.

If you are looking for a story that has spooky atmosphere that is actually well-written, I humbly suggest:
Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (This is what The Devouring Gray wishes it was.)
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones

The experience of reading this book was similar to my experience seeing the film The Exorcist for the first (and so far, only) time. I'd steered clear of the Exorcist for a long time because I'm a wimp and I was told how terrifying it was over and over again. The hype of it as 'one of the scariest movies of all time' had me firmly prepared to never watch it. When I finally did see it in my mid-twenties, I was seriously underwhelmed. I thought the movie was cheesy and, to be honest, boring.

As far as The Haunting of Hill House goes, I wasn't actively avoiding it, but it wasn't a story I knew much about before the Netflix series that came out last year. I'd heard of it, and heard it referred to as a classic horror novel and 'one of the greatest of all time' but never really had an interest in it.
I finally decided to read it this fall, and I have to say, I don't get the hype.

First of all, and probably the most important point for me...this book isn't scary. It's not spooky. It's not even creepy. Most of the time is spent with a small group of insipid characters just talking about nothing. I didn't feel like I knew any of the characters at all, and I never understood why these particular people were chosen and why they would decide to go to this supposedly haunted house and stay there. Luke is the outlier in that he is actually part of the family who owns the house, but there really isn't much of a purpose or motivation given to any of these characters that really makes sense to me.

In reality, this seems to be a book about mental illness more than a book about a haunted house. Maybe that was supposed to be the point and I'm just not smart enough to get it.
Eleanor is the POV we follow for the most part, and we see her mental state degrade over the course of the book. We're supposed to infer, I believe, that something about the house is affecting her and causing her sense of reality to become warped and ultimately, she suffers a mental break. But it was obvious from the very beginning of the novel that she spends a lot of time inside her own head concocting fantasies and is already susceptible to this kind of behavior.

I don't feel like I have much to say about the other characters, specifically Luke, who I know nothing about. I'm not sure what his purpose was in the book.

The writing isn't as strong as I was hoping it would be, considering how renowned Shirley Jackson seems to be. It was very poetical in spots, specifically the dialogue and Eleanor's musings about the world around her. I saw another review that talked about this being in a sort of beatnik style. I can't speak to that, not knowing a lot about that artistic movement, but I will say that there were times when the dialogue and interactions between the characters felt more like a dream than something that we're supposed to believe was really happening.

I won't say that this is a case of the show being better than the book, although I do think that the Netflix show is better than this book.(Seriously. If you haven't watched the show, stop reading this right now and GO WATCH. It's so good.) But I also don't consider them to really be related. Besides some of the characters names and the name of the house, there is little to no resemblance between these two pieces of fiction. I'm not even sure how the show came about as an adaptation. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the show was developed completely separately from the book and then someone said, "Hey, why don't we change some of these names and market it as an adaptation of the Haunting of Hill House?" It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

I do feel a little bad giving this two stars. It's really more of a 2.5. There's nothing WRONG with the book, but I just didn't enjoy myself.

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this. For me, it was a case where I pretty much had everything figured out before it was revealed. But I thought the writing was generally strong with interesting, flawed characters.
I took off stars because while I did enjoy my reading experience, there were moments that I wasn’t able to suspend disbelief. The idea that

Lisa/Amy/Jade could fake her own suicide and go into hiding just to turn around and become a touring musician just didn’t sit right with me. Also, we jump from her father telling her they can’t stay in contact to Riley finding a bunch of evidence that not only did they keep in contact, they actually spent time physically together. How on Earth was she not found before Riley?
I also felt like the ending was super rushed and in the course of that, there were several storylines that felt like they were dropped and forgotten. I would’ve liked a little more closure to those things.
That said, I do think this would be a good book for a reader looking for a family drama mixed with a little suspense.

My experience with this book was not what I was expecting. My rating is kind of an average of how I felt about the different parts of this book, which I think worked to varying degrees of success.

I loved the first third-to-half of this book. As a historical fiction, I think it hits the mark, especially in the first part. I learned about Korea and the Japanese occupation of that country, which isn't something I knew much about previously. I thought it was really interesting to see the social dynamic between the peoples of these two countries and sad to see the political issues that made Koreans essentially second-class citizens in their own country.

I enjoyed the story and characters we were following in the first part of this book. Isak and Sunja were a couple I really wanted good things for. I rooted for them as individuals and as a family. I loved the dynamic between them and also Sunja and Kyunghee, her sister-in-law. Yoseb, Isak's brother, wasn't my favorite, but he is absolutely a product of his time and culture, and I didn't see him as a bad guy, just very flawed. At the same time, I wanted their family to be happy.

I really enjoyed this book showcasing the ladies as strong and capable people, willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, not content to let the men in their lives take care of everything, while still being cognizant and respectful of their culture and what was expected of them as wives and mothers in their situations. The way Sunja insists on helping to support her family after

Isak is imprisoned

really cemented her in my heart. I was really connected to these characters at this part of the story. It was absolutely a 5-star book at that point for me.

Then, we moved on to focus on the next generation. At this point, my enjoyment of the story waned. I just didn't care as much about Noa and Mozasu. I felt like the story could've just been about Sunja and Isak, with Kyunghee and Yoseb as the dominate side characters, and I would've been content. Once we get to the generation AFTER Noa and Mozasu, my interest had all but vanished.

I think one of the main problems I had was that there was a distance in the writing that just didn't allow me to connect to the characters like I wanted to, aside from Sunja and Isak. I think that as more and more characters were added to the landscape, the ability to form connections dissipated because of the detached style. This book is written in 3rd person, which is fine, but it feels very detached. We never get really close to the characters, especially later in the book, insteading just flitting along from one person to another. We're never with any one character long enough to form attachments to them. And many of the characters we follow aren't even part of this family, and their stories did nothing for me. I would've rather stuck with the family members and had them more fully-developed.
Also, this detached style made moments that should've had emotional impact completely fall flat for me. There would be these tragic things going on, but it's being relayed to us in such a lackadaisical way that I couldn't muster up any real emotion over it. One example is

Noa's death. Actually, his entire story after he learns of his patronage is a big miss for me, mostly because there really isn't any story. He's missing, he's found, he dies by suicide. But the way we're told that he dies is almost as an afterthought tacked on at the end of a paragraph. He's mentioned in passing once or twice more after the fact, but we're given no real reason for him to take his own life. Considering that none of these people's stories would've happened this way if it was for Noa makes it all feel even more pointless, because it feels like the author kind of forgets about him.

I know it's bound to happen in a book that covers nearly 60 years of time, but this book seemed to really skim over things that I actually wanted to know about and then deep dive into characters and events that I didn't care about in the slightest.

Also, some of the language being used felt very stilted and awkward, especially when characters are having dialogue about or during sex. It just doesn't feel authentic to how people actually talk about or during intimacy. Perhaps it was because I was listening to the audio that this felt very obvious to me, but those sections read like bad erotica. No subtlety whatsoever.

So with the first half being a 5, and the second half being a 2, I've decided to average out my rating to 3 stars. Technically that would be 3.5, but since the ending wasn't great it gets bumped down instead of up to 4.

I read this book in one sitting, and I have no regrets. Even though it takes place in the summertime, it is the perfect October/Halloween read. While it’s not a copy of either, I think you’d enjoy this book if you’re a fan of Hocus Pocus or Practical Magic. Or sirens. Really, this book just sucked me in.

I enjoyed the surprises I didn’t see coming and the fact that this book wasn’t afraid to ‘go there.’

Shea Ernshaw’s next book is an immediate buy.