Review: There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

There's Someone Inside Your House

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Release: September 26th 2017

Genre: Horror, Slasher, Young Adult

Plot:

Scream meets YA in this hotly-anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss.

One-by-one, the students of Osborne High are dying in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, the dark secrets among them must finally be confronted.

International bestselling author Stephanie Perkins returns with a fresh take on the classic teen slasher story that’s fun, quick-witted, and completely impossible to put down. 

Goodreads | Book Depository

Review:

Eh. Listen. I absolutely love horror novels and movies, and while the slasher subgenre might not be my favorite due do its simplicity in formula (despite it probably being the most notorious), this still could have been awesome. It wasn't, though.

The novel takes ages to get to the actual horror plot. Yes, people die here and there, but they are people that the reader has, for the most part, never met or heard and seen very little of. There's no emotional connection, not to the reader and certainly not to the main character, so at this point it's just like, Cool, ok, he's killing some randos. Whatever. All the while, Perkins sets up one of the most boring romances of the century and leaves Makani's supposed friends out in the cold. She has more screen time with Ollie than with these friends <spoiler>so I didn't even care when one of them died at the end, which really shouldn't happen. If you're going to focus the reader's - and Makani's - emotional connection most on Ollie, then at least have him die. That's not too hard to get.</spoiler>

Also, the whole tension is let out like a deflated whoopee cushion at around halfway through when we already learn the killer's identity. Seriously, this came so out of left field and took so much out of the story that I was really expecting there to be some kind of twist, either that it wasn't really that person, or they had another accomplice that everyone else didn't know about, or they were working in someone else's name. Anything but what it actually turned out to be in the end. Sure, horror takes a while to get rolling, but if you're going for a slow start, you need to create or keep up tension somehow. Usually, if that's the case, the story is from the killer's perspective anyway and simply takes the time to set up the killer's motive and backstory or if you're going to take an eon, at least leave the killer's identity up in the air until the grand finale and the big reveal. This way, it was just really lame. Not to mention that it's a character whose name was mentioned once and never again before that, and that his motivation for killing was extremely underwhelming on top of that.

Besides, the whole time there's this shadow looming over the story in the form of Makani's supposed dark past. Really, I was just bothered the entire time that the narrative makes such a huge deal out of this secret without ever specifying what it's all about, which is simply annoying as fuck. If you're going to bring something like that up, solve it in a reasonable time span or keep it. Whenever Makani does get around to telling that particular story, it was blown so out of proportion that it just looked ridiculous and childish in the end, especially compared to the fact that there's an actual serial killer on the loose and there are definitely more important things to worry about right now, thanks. The same goes for Ollie's mysterious dark rumors and the reveal of the "true" story behind them.

All in all, it was a huge let-down. I was very excited and I really didn't have any doubts about whether or not Perkins could pull off a horror story, but I guess my faith was a bit misplaced. I'll continue reading her fluffy contemporaries, but if she plans on publishing another horror, I'll think twice about it.