The Home – Judith Sonnet

3 stars

The Home has one of the creepiest characters I’ve read in a long time! Mr. Friendlyman with his squaggly fingers had me absolutely fascinated and very creeped out as I thought about all the possibilities a character like him represents.

My favourite character was Griffin. He was such a wholesome kid who, unfortunately, had a run of bad luck that led to some really horrible things happening.  I got really attached to him over the book! Orville, to a lesser extent, but Griffin was my guy.

Now, that being said, there was something about two-thirds of the way through the book that really lost me. After that, it felt like I was reading an entirely different story, and I didn’t get as much enjoyment out of it as I was before then. Some of it was my fault as I had a very different idea of where the book was going so I set myself up for disappointment, but I didn’t feel the element introduced enhanced the plot so much as it hindered it.

I also had a bit of a hard time with the frequent time swaps between the past and the present. Certain parts were hard to remember which timeline I was reading, and I had some confusion about the general year the present was taking place. I think maybe a different setup for the time swaps or even chapter headers that told the reader which timeline they were in would’ve been really helpful.

The Home was a really creepy and atmospheric book for the most part. Unfortunately, the few things that didn’t work as well for me were enough that I couldn’t fully enjoy the book like I wanted to.