Ratings159
Average rating3.9
If you're into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Locke and Key and Mexican Gothic then this book is for you.
A mysterious house with an even more mysterious owner, and the burgeoning dark secrets underneath threatening to swallow a town whole. This book was such a fun read!
Unfortunate Opal, not much of a family or history to speak of, she did her best to provide for her little brother, Jasper, and send him to greener pastures. The oppressive small town have bothered her and her kin long ago and would rather have them gone.
Opal somehow keeps her curiosity and wonder alive partially in part to her favorite book, The Underland, a Lewis Carroll-esque written by a previous owner of Starling House.
Then, Opal meets the current young legacy owner of Starling House and breadcrumbs turn into life or death decisions. Trust is earned and easily dashed.
I loved how all these storylines intersect as the characters get to know themselves and each other, all while they fight an even greater evil. Yet, The Big Bad is not painted in black or white but in satisfying shades of grey. The final hurrah, as characters dash forward to fulfill their purposes, felt earned and satisfying. Great book.
Reallllly thought this was going to be a five star read from the start, but then it took quite too long for the story to really progress. The writing style was way too descriptive at some points.
Actual rating: 3.25 stars
Although this has a pretty slow start to the storyline, the character building and mystery keep you hanging in till things begin to pick up. Where I thought the story would have a natural ending, I discovered the book was only half-way done, leaving one to wonder where the story could move to from here? I wasn't disappointed at the remaining half of the book, nor the epilogue.
Horror like this isn't really my thing, but I feel like this is a very solid follow up to Shirley Jackson... and it makes a bit more sense.
The setting and atmosphere were great - atmosphere is very moody and gothic because of this sentient house & the mist that surrounds it. There are also a lot of mysteries surrounding the house and the owners of the house that I found intriguing in the beginning. I thought it was interesting finding out why the house attracts the people it does.
I didn't love the romance in this and felt that it was kind of unnecessary and would have been better as just a friendship. I think there was a lot in the plot that felt unnecessary and I wasn't sure why it was in there; plot was just kind of losing me as the book went on.
4.5 stars. An adventurous gothic fairytale. Brontë meets Beauty and the Beast meets Alice in Wonderland meets Stranger Things. Super fun.
An impeccable story. It has romance, mystery, mild horror, a spooky house, and even a little bit of comedy. No notes.
Rating: 3.8 leaves out of 5-Characters: 3/5 -Cover: 5/5-Story: 4/5-Writing: 4/5Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Gothic, Mystery, Romance-Horror: 1/5-Fantasy: 5/5-Gothic: 5/5-Mystery: 3/5-Romance: 4/5Type: AudiobookWorth?: YesHated Disliked Meh It Was Okay Liked Loved FavoritedWant to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.I had requested this book and was on the fence about it. I left it sitting and was going to pick it up later September but a woman on Tiktok said she wished she had picked it up sooner. That really had me curious. Do I agree with her? Kinda.Where I did enjoy the story a lot as a whole I did have some annoyance with Opal, mostly, and a bit from Jasper. Opal could be a bit much and how she acted towards Arthur made my blood boil sometimes. As for Jasper. How he treated Opal sometimes annoyed me. Also this whole book felt like a NA/YA novel. For these people to be 26/27 and acting like they fresh out the womb... it was annoying. Beyond that, the story was... so so good. Despite how I felt about Opal as a person I did cheer for her and Arthur a good chunk of the time. It was magical and gothic. It showed the ugly side of history. It showed how people are disgusting monsters when it comes to ownership and land. I really really do recommend this book.
I loved Opal and Arthur. This book was the perfect amount of spooky, but safe. I loved the house and the Hellcat and Bev and Charlotte. I wish it was harder to figure out the mystery of Elenor/ Nora Lee and the Underland story. I needed there to be more of a riddle or something. Even though Opal and Arthur were in their late twenties and early thirties, they read like 18-year-olds. They were petulant and it definitely felt like more of a coming-of-age story than an adult fantasy. I still really liked it, but it needed to be more.
This was okay, but something was missing. I would have loved it if a POV from Eleanor was included.
Really didn't enjoy this... by the time I was a quarter through the book, I was just hate-reading this lolol
more unnecessary romance but its alix e harrow shes good at that
i really liked the house though. its like a friendly haunted house which was cool. i enjoyed the monsters and i feel bad for that girl whose name i cant remember and its not mentioned in the description. i mean jesus fuck. i want a story about HER not these fucking horny teenagers opal and arthur. i LIKED arthur too til it turns out he was just ordinary guy
two people with martyr complexes as big as houses stubbornly rescue each other repeatedly. maybe its a little too repeated, maybe it drags, maybe the moments of emphasis on the beauty and the beast of it all missed for me. but there's just no world where a book that has a two for the price of one sale on fucked up ppl w martyr complexes doesn't hit like hell for me. bonus points for raising a sibling in the absence of a parent, that's a lovely delicacy that i have such a taste for!
This book was magical! I couldn't stop reading it.
When Opal was younger she was endlessly fascinated by the mysterious Starling House that has a long history of creepy and interesting stories about it and it's inhabitants. She would dream about it often but when her mother dies tragically she can no longer live in fantasy. Presently, Opal lives in a motel in a dying town with her younger brother that she cares for. Opal is doing all she can to keep them afloat and to hopefully save enough money to get her brother out of the town. But when she gets a job offer to work in THE Starling House she knows that nothing good can come from this but decides to take the job anyway. With each work day that passes she starts to feel like Starling House is her home and gets more pulled in by the odd owner. However, strange and dangerous things also start to happen.
The writing of this book is so beautiful. Many parts of this book are not beautiful but instead ugly and heartbreaking but it's impossible to not invest in the characters, the town, and the house from Alix E. Harrow's writing. I very much enjoyed how there was a fairy tale mixed with some true crime lore surrounding this house. And the house is a character in itself.
The first few chapters focused on poor Southern kids and I wondered where the story would go. I'm glad I stuck with it past the first 50 pages because the story grew into a modern Souther Gothic fairytale worthy of all the poor kids living on ramen noodles and twinkies who dream of a different life (and I say that as one of those kids who is now grown-up and wishes for a tale like this).
The characters are not beautiful nor misunderstood but they do want more than what life has dealt them. Then wrap that in a tale of monsters and magic and you have a book that is worthy of being one of the best books I read in 2023.
After doing on again off again reading with this one and trying to dredge past the annoying footnotes towards the end made this worth a four star read. I loved opal and just overall loved the way the storytelling is done in this book. But alix girl you can do without the footnotes. When reading along with the audiobook it just really ruins the flow of the book at the beginning but it makes sense what is being done and i appreciate the story as a whole to say you need to read this book.
I love Alix Harrow's writing. This book had flawed and loveable characters and the house was one of them. Definitely worth a read!
A beautiful angsty (in my favorite way) Beauty and the Beast southern Gothic retelling with themes of family / chosen family, environmentalism, and the charm and terror of small towns. I loooooved it.
I don't remember the exact page count, but Opal (the main character l, I think that's her name) was grating on my nerves. She was just rude and jealous all the time. If it was occasionally, I would ignore it. But any time I got comfortable, she complained about something that just as much out of said characters control as her life circumstances.
My breaking point was when she was talking about the family that her brother went to stay with when she came home late. They seemed to comfortable, my bet would be middle class. The mom is a county clerk and the dad puts up roofs. That's my reasoning. And she hates them because they're better off than her? They're letting her brother stay the night. Their son is his friend, so I'd assume they at least like her and her brother. And she hates them? I'm sorry but I'm done.
The mood was everything but I didn't vibe with the pacing. It was like a weird feverdream with every chapter a different pacing and shift in tone.
I liked the plot and idea but the execution was not for me.