Soon to be a major motion picture coming to Netflix in 2021!“A heart-pounding page-turner with an outstanding cast of characters, a deliciously creepy setting, and an absolutely merciless body count.” –Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie and The ProjectA New York Times bestsellerIt’s been almost a year since Makani Young came to live with her grandmother and she’s still … Makani Young came to live with her grandmother and she’s still adjusting to her new life in rural Nebraska. Then, one by one, students at her high school begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair.
As the body count rises and the terror grows closer, can Makani survive the killer’s twisted plan?
more
4/5
THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE by Stephanie Perkins is a weird combination from the beginning as it’s a Young Adult slasher novel. I spent much of my childhood watching R-rated movies like Alien, Robocop, Friday the 13th, and Terminator but the ilicit thrill was in watching something you weren’t supposed to. This is a rather strange combination of sweet teenage romance and then gutting people.
I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be R-Rated given the level of violence on display but it is definitely a teenage story too. This somewhat disjointed tone is both a complaint and a compliment as I would recommend this book to people who don’t necessarily like slasher movies or hardcore horror. Its tone might put off those who are big fans of the genre, though, as it zigs when most examples of the genre zag.
Makani Young is an Afro-Hawaiian student in Osborne, Nebraska where she sticks out like a sore thumb. Having done a nebulous “bad thing” that forced her to move in with her grandmother, she’s trying to rebuild her life in a school she hates. The only bright spot in Makani’s life is her sort-of boyfriend Ollie that she lost her virginity to but pushed away. Ollie is a pink-haired troublemaker with a heart of (seeming) gold. The two reconnect when one of their fellow students is murdered in her house and the body count starts to grow.
The obvious comparison for this book is Wes Craven’s Scream but the killer remains off-camera to a significant more degree than Ghostface. Here, the focus is squarely on Makani and Ollie for the most part as well as their romance. Even so, the book makes the wise decision to reveal who the killer is about halfway through the book.
This isn’t a mystery but a slasher and that’s when the book starts to pick up steam. Some individuals may be disappointed with the killer’s identity and motivation but the book makes clear that their absurdity is the point. Nothing could justify their killing spree and its randomness is part of the point. Sadly, the reality of a teenager snapping then going on a killing spree of their classmates means that this isn’t a fantastical premise like it was in the 80s ala Heathers. The only difference between this killer and real world school killers is he uses a knife not a gun.
I’m a big fan of slasher movies and horror so I’m always glad to see a serious work entered into the genre in a new medium. I think I like this a bit more than Riley Sager’s Final Girls despite the fact the latter is more high concept but that’s because it sticks to its landing far better. This feels more realistic and grounded, too, for whatever that counts in a slasher novel.
In conclusion, if you’re interested in a tame YA story to introduce other people to the slasher genre as well as something that is intelligently written as well as romantic then this is a pretty good novel. I liked Ollie and Makani’s relationship as well as appreciated it was frankly sexual in a way that felt a lot more real than most books about teenagers their age. There’s a few issues I have as I think the slasher scenes could have been more suspenseful in the beginning. These are minor flaws, though.
Extremely well done. Actually creeped me out and sticks with you.
I struggled with what rating to give this book. I really did. At first, I wanted to give it five stars for the wonderful array of characters but as the book went on, it lost more and more appeal to me due to issues in the plot. There’s Someone Inside Your House begins with a girl, Makani Young, who moves to a small town in Nebraska to be with her grandmother after an incident in Hawaii made her a social pariah. In her new town of Osborne, she has her circle of friends who she cherishes more than anything but she cannot quite forget about the loved ones she left behind.
Makani wants to get out of the town but takes comfort in the fact that no one there knows the truth of who she is and what she’s done. Then the killings begin. This is where I started to feel conflicted about the book. The killings are ultimately unrelated and the killer himself turns out to be very random. I had assumed that Makani’s past that she was so scared of would have something to do with the killings but it actually turned out to be very pointless to the overall story. When it was finally revealed why she moved, I felt almost disappointed.
I kept reading however and the ending turned out to be disappointing as well. The serial killer was just an average human yet there were several times he was outnumbered and he always got away completely unscathed. One time or two, I could be okay with, but it happened so many times that it just lost believability.
If you’re a fan of quick, slasher reads with plenty of blood and gore, this might be up your alley.
This is the first book I’ve read by Ms. Perkins. I know she’s written some very popular books, but I think this is the perfect one for me to start with. There are many things to like about this book. First are the diverse characters. Many authors writing stories set in small town middle America will allow themselves to get comfortable with mainly straight, white characters. Or they’ll go to the other extreme of focusing their writing on how hard it is to be diverse in a small town. In There’s Someone Inside Your House, you have a book that is written from the perspective of a person of color who just happens to live in a town mainly populated by white folks. The fact that Makani is of mixed race is acknowledged, but it’s not really the focus of the story line. She’s dating a white kid, but it’s not an issue. One of her friends is transgender, but no one seems to notice it much. Don’t get me wrong, kids in minority groups do face more than their fair share of hate, but it’s nice for an author to be bold and kind of say “small town doesn’t have to mean small minds”.
The characters, both main and supporting, are sufficiently complex and fleshed out. The reveal of Makani’s “big secret” at first felt like a letdown, but the more I thought about it, the more I could understand why what happened impacted her so strongly. I enjoyed the romance, because it wasn’t dramatic or schmaltzy. My favorite part of this reading experience is the whole teen slasher movie feel. It was like seeing Scream again for the first time. As a whole, I just plain liked this book. The only complaint I have is that the title implies a dynamic that wasn’t really there for me. Yes there was someone in her house, but that wasn’t the primary focus of the book, so that felt off to me.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys teen slasher movies and isn’t too squeamish.
This was fun to read but fell short for me on the scare scale. The author had some really great scare vibes going but then rushed into the gore. The why it happened, too, was lame. I did like the “Scream” feel to it. I read this in preparation for the Netflix production. I’ll watch it to see what gets done with it there.
The characters were fine. The setting was good. The parts in the house, I loved. I would have welcomed that tension being drawn out. It’s not really the gore that thrills, (though the author did well with that). For me it is being invited in the experience, letting my imagination go with the characters who are caught in the house wondering if they are really seeing things. If that had been drawn out a bit this would have been a keep the lights on book. I would have made it a five star book if the killer had some surprising reason for what he did.
Read it for the entertainment not for the chills.
Fast-paced, teen-slasher type movie (along the lines of “Scream”). Fun read around Halloween.
I’ve been stocking up on some atmospheric fall reads, and this creepy YA slasher-thriller was the first on my list. I absolutely adore Stephanie Perkins’ other YA series, Anna and the French Kiss, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, it just didn’t land quite the same way. I think I wanted more suspense for more of the book, or maybe more untrustworthy main characters. It felt less original than I was hoping. That being said, it’s a good read for the dreary autumnal days leading up to Halloween, with lots of gore and gotcha-moments, and even if I didn’t absolutely love it, it’s still a good pick for the season.
*3.5 Stars*
This one has been sitting on my shelf for a while, and with by making time for myself more lately, I’ve had a chance to pick it up.
This sounded like a really interesting book, and it was, but it was a little bit hard to get into at first, and stay captivated. Once things picked up it was great, but it did take a while to get to that point.
There are a couple of mysteries going on within the storyline, and it was interesting to finally get the answers to those. I didn’t mind the characters, but I didn’t love them either.