CHADD JAVIER

4.5/5 ⭐️

“Fate determined who enters in you life, your actions decide who stays”

John Marrs did it again! He definitely is my current favourite author. I love his writing style, you always follow several characters but he has a way of writing where you don't get confused who you're reading about. He writes short chapters and most of the chapters have a cliffhanger at the end so you keep wanting to read more.

This book is set in a hostel in California, I didn't read the synopsis so I didn't really know what to expect and I think that was a good choice. The first few chapters gave me Hostel(the movie) vibes.

I knocked down 0.5 ⭐️ just becuase one of the plot twists was just ridiculous. With John Marrs, you don't have to guess what happens to the characters because there are no loose ends, everything is wrapped up neatly and I love that.

I won't say much about the book because I don't want to spoil anything, but if you want a fast paced and thrilling read, pick this up.

” We're all entitled to a bad day now and again, I heard Gran say in my head. But when they are all bad days, with no pleasant ones, then it's time to reconsider things. “

This book is such as classic mystery, you don't know who did what. The beginning was too slow for me but at 52% I couldn't put the book down. 

I loved Molly as a character, I enjoyed reading from her perspective. My heart hurt for her towards the end, I almost ended up in tears! The part with her grandmother was written well and I could feel the pain she was going through.

I loved the ending! Though it's too good to be true, I felt happy for Molly! I feel like she deserved a happy ending.

 “Because when you're not considered to be a threat, you can get away with much, much more.” 

This book is dark and twisted especially the first part. Read the trigger warnings before picking this up. Even for me, it was a bit difficult to read and I don't have triggers.

By 2/3 of this book, I was raging, I don't know if that was the intention of John Marrs or not, on his previous books I still felt a bit of pity for the antagonists but this one I definitely did not. I wanted to kill her myself. A character has never made me this angry before.

the ending wasn't as satisfying as I hoped it would be but that's okay. We can't always get what we want.

“Faye was lying on her side, facing away from me, and whispering one half of a very strange conversation. I imagined a person crouching in the darkness at the edge of the bed, smiling up at her and whispering back.”

This book started in a snowy cabin, thought it would be romantic? No. It is very atmospheric. The writer did a great job with setting up the scene to be cold, uninviting and spine chilling.

This book is freaky! I dare you to read this at night, in bed. If you don't get spooked out, I salute you! Even the prologue made the hair at the back of my neck stand up and I don't get scared easily. Though, it got a bit repetitive towards the middle of the book.

I loved the relationship between the two main characters Faye and Felix, they're funny and seem in love with each other. I didn't like the relationship between Faye and her parents, her parents kept hiding secrets from them and it didn't seem like a healthy relationship. Especially letting your daughter stay in a cabin where you know terrible things happen.

”..the dividing line betwixt adult and child was simply how self serious one was. Children thought the moon was made of cheese; adults believed in more complex but equally silly things, like government. Everything was one big joke.”

To be honest, I picked up this book because of the title.

This is about a family who recently moved town. Since moving in, strange things started happening. It is the mom's dream home, but is it really?

This book takes haunted house to the next level. It's not scary though, it bordered on comical but not funny. With that said, It's still entertaining and it's a quick read only 158 pages long.

I enjoyed Damien, the youngest child's character. He reminded me of Stewie from Family Guy. The way he wanted to trick his mom and he seemed demonic in a certain way with his pranks. 

The start of the book was promising, but as the story unravelled it just did not live up to my expectations.