This is a creepy little short story that is very much in line with the rest of the Junji Ito stuff I have read.

 

The ending is a little twisted (that is not unusual with his stuff) and the art very much adds to the atmosphere of the whole thing. Something is terribly wrong, and it seems kind of natural but kind of isn't.

 

Do not expect terribly happy endings with his stuff, for sure. These are dark little universes he puts on display, and bad things happen to the people who live there. But this story sticks with you, and it is the implications that are scarier than anything that strictly happens. 

 

This was a decent read, all in all. 

 

There were some legitimate scares in several places, and I do love the general feel of a haunted house story where you have to learn about what happened in the house to solve what is currently happening. I was kind of creeped out while reading, which is what I wanted. 

 

The "Cam" portion of the story doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense. I completely buy that

I'm also not sure I buy them staying in the house or their weird refusal, despite everything that is happening individually to each of them, of any of them to believe the others about the paranormal activity going on. Okay, maybe there is some valid reason to stay in the house (even just "it's a horror novel" is a moderately valid reason, I guess), but why do we have to go through the whole rigmarole of "Oh, there is a perfectly rational explanation" every single time something happens? An awful lot of things happen, here. There is a certain point where unless the characters were exceedingly stupid (and they otherwise did not show signs of being so), they would have just plain started believing that weird stuff was still happening without having to disbelieve every single time. 

 

The constant harping on the language differences between American and British English was kind of annoying. I can only come up with two reasons for it to be done: either the author thought we readers were too stupid to understand the differences (and this is a book written for adults, for sure), or the author was desperately trying to stretch things out. I'm not sure which explanation I believe, though the latter does seem to have some further support in the sheer amount of exposition throughout. 

 

I did want to know about the background of the house. I was interested in the characters and the backstory. I didn't really need nearly as much of it as I got, and I certainly didn't need it info-dumped on me near the end of the story. That is the point where I am hoping for a build-up into some kind of climax, not for a sudden stroll down memory lane. The book was just plain too long in several places, honestly, and that almost never bothers me. 

 

I will pick up more books by James Herbert, for sure; this book is probably more negative than my reading merits, and I enjoyed it enough that I'm interested in more horror stories by him, but it had a few problems that were hard to overlook sometimes. If you're a fan of haunted house stories, though, this is absolutely worth a read. 

 

This was beautiful.

 

I was worried, with all of the build-up it was getting, that it was going to be a huge disappointment, but in the end it won me over. I do admit I hadn't realized going in that it was a series (a trilogy I'm guessing?) and not a stand-alone novel, though, so the ending was not at all what I was expecting.

 

What sold me on it was the beauty of the setting (I really need to search out more Middle Eastern-y fantasy books--I seem to always love them when I find them) and the characters. The touch of magic in the reality of the world was carefully handled and very well-done. 

 

I did not expect the love story to work for me. I did not expect to find myself rooting for the people I did. It completely won me over, though. I may possibly have teared up a little bit at points, which I don't generally do with romance portions of novels. At best, I get cheery, but this was touching and sweet in an odd way.

 

I really enjoyed Shazi, and the caliph ended up being significantly more intriguing than I thought he was going to be. Shazi was a fabulous main character, though; a little bit snarky and focused on revenge, but able to understand herself to see her feelings changing, willing to trust and to make friends even in awful situations, and interested in everything as well as capable of making sound judgements based on what she learned. That is kind of rare in heroines, sometimes, so I greatly enjoyed it in her. In addition, I'm a huge sucker for female characters that use bows (possibly because of my video game addiction?), so that was a point in her favor.

 

I enjoyed the fact that she ended up with a female friend, and that female friendship was so integral to the story, for all that this is, in the end, a story about one woman and a rather strange marriage. I loved seeing this story retold and updated without losing the charm of the original. 

 

One of my only complaints is relatively minor and says more about how good the storytelling was than anything else: I was hoping to see more of Shazi telling stories. I know she did it, and apparently quite a bit, but much like the caliph, I was entranced and I wanted to hear more about what was going on in that fantasy world. 

 

I will absolutely be reading the next book when it comes out and I can't wait to see what else Renee Ahdieh writes. 

 

This was a quick and interesting story that had a bit of a twist. I saw the twist coming pretty early, but the story was very short and the ending was satisfying, so it was worth the read. 

 

Babysitting is one of the more terrifying jobs in the world, seriously. You never know what horrible thing is going to go wrong.