My Sister-in-Law's Novella, and The Women in the Walls

I'm really lucky to have as my sister-in-law an incredibly talented writer, whose first novella (for which she won the Pen/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize) just got released! I will fully admit how biased I am, but I think it is brilliant.

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Title: The Women in the Walls
Author: Amy Lukavics
Publication Date: September 27, 2016
Genre: Young Adult Horror/Supernatural/Paranormal
Recommended If You Like: creepiness, disturbed and disturbing families, haunted houses, unreliable narrators (and characters)

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

The Book:

Lucy feels stuck in her ancestral family home--and with good reason. Her mother is dead, her father detached, her aunt missing, and her cousin hearing voices in the walls. As Lucy begins to try to solve the many mysteries she finds herself drowning in, she begins to learn more about feeling haunted than she ever wanted to know.

What I Liked:

This book is creepy! I was impressed with Lukavics' ability to create genuine scares, and play around with classic horror tropes.

The setting is really well done as well. The isolated house is almost another character, especially the attic, full of spooky noises and possible malice.

Anything I Didn't Like?

In terms of purely personal preference, it got a little too gross and gory for me at times with some of the descriptions.

The ending, while definitely interesting and scary, was a bit confusing at first. It did come together for me before I finished the book, but it took a bit. I think this is because the big twists seemed to come a little bit out of left field. The rest of the book was a little slow, but when it came to the ending, things suddenly moved really fast. I suspect this was to amp up the horror and tension, which definitely worked, but it made the ending a little rushed.

So...?

This was a good read-not my favorite young adult horror read ever, but really creepy, and definitely interesting.

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