All I have to say about this book is how immensely proud I am of Jill for surviving all that. And how much respect I've got for Derick and their marriage, that they somehow made it work thought everything that happened to them.

I found their show randomly on YouTube when I was 19 and was sucked in. 8 years later this book (and the recent news about the family) slapped the rose tinted glasses off my face.

**I do not rate memoirs

I think this is the perfect book to read as the weather is slowly transitioning into fall, it felt very cozy and the romance was really sweet! Other than that, I think that if I had read it at a younger age, I would have definitely rated it higher!

To be entirely honest, I didn't enjoy this as much as I hoped I would. Partly because I didn't connect with the main character at all and partly because it felt like there were 2 stories happening simultaneously without them mixing very well; one story being the werewolf stuff and one story being the sister & Ian relationship thingy.

One thing that I did like was how the sisterly relationship was portrayed, always love reading about sisters in books!

Having read 3 of his books within almost a month, I find that they are very repetitive in structure. We are following someone in the present, that always doesn't remember what happened in the past and then we follow what happened in the past too, at a slow and agonizing pace. I do get that it works, but at this point, the unreliable narrator trope is being slightly overused.

Saying that, this was probably the best out of the 3 books I read, mostly because I didn't know I'd enjoy a haunted house this much!

not to be a smartass, but like HOW did no adult think that a houre as huge as that one would possibly have a secret passage through the armoire!! How were they sooooo dense is beyond me really. When your kid keeps complaining about the armoire, you check the fucking armoire 😂

I think this book arrived at the right time in my life. Finishing it on the night of my 27th birthday, it felt like having a chat with a best friend. Absolutely marvellous!

**i do not rate memoirs.

Wheeeeere has this book been all my life 😭 it was so so good, so EXACTLY what I love in a book, I didn't want it to finish!

The magical elements, the relationship, the world, everything was so well crafted, that this felt like a fairytale. My favourite definitely has to be the writing style, I've never read anything from Rebecca Ross before, but now I'm definitely a fan ⭐

Dec '24 reread // still as awfully gorgeous as before, this book has my ABSOLUTE heart!

This was a difficult oneeeee
Didn't like Sam and Tina at all, it was almost frustrating at times how Quincy "allowed" all that was happening.

At the same time, it wasn't as thrilling cause even though

Lisa ended up dead at some point, I wasn't even remotely invested in her so I didn't really care who did it 😅

.

The ending was also something that I didn't enjoy cause it didn't come off as a plot twist, like I didn't feel anything. I know we had Quincy as an unreliable narrator, but at the same time I found the ending pretty similar to the ending of "The Last time I lied", in the sense that the unassuming guy that was always in plain sight did it. And having read that book first, when we were nearing the end and it was obvious Johannes hadn't done it, it was easy for me to figure out who actually did.

Props to the fact that Sage 's books read amazingly as audiobooks, cause I tried an e-book format as well and couldn't get through it, whereas the audiobook made it so easy to consume!

Even though when I started this, I was so invested in the story and loved how creepy it was, I slowly lost interest, as is shown by the fact that it took me more than two months to finish it!

Would read something else from this author tbh, but maybe after a couple of months.

I will be honest, I read this to be able to finish the Gilmore Girls reading challenge 😅

This was a looooovely read! It was creepy and eerie, especially as we were nearing its climax, but what I liked the most was all the underlying messages that would make it a joy to annotate!!

I think one of the biggest things that stayed with me was the fact that somehow, deep down Alicia and Remy did love each other. Even when they were with other people, doing something mundane, they would catch themselves thinking "oh I wonder what the other would have said about this". And they were together even in their obsession over Jen, so stupidly, inexplicably together and I just found that really touching.