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

There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins
Published On: October 5, 2017
Published By: Pan Macmillan
Genre: YA, Horror
Pages: 289
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Rating: ★★★★

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Over a year after her parents sent her away from Hawaii to live with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska, Makani Young is still adjusting to her new life. She's made a small group of close friends and even flirted with romance, but her past in Hawaii is still hard to forget. 
And then . . . one by one the students of her new high school begin to die in a series of gruesome murders. Makani doesn't know who's next on the list. Between this, and a secret scorching relationship with the school weirdo, this school year may turn out to be one to die for . . . literally.

*A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

As Stephanie Perkins is one of my favourite authors of all time, of course this was possibly my most anticipated release of the year, meaning I had very high expectations going into it. There's Someone Inside Your House is very different to any of her previous work. She is so good at writing adorable contemporary romance stories that I love, so I was a bit unsure of how I would feel about a horror novel, something I don't typically pick up otherwise.

I feel like this book is a good introduction to the horror genre if, like me, you would normally gravitate towards a cute contemporary. It was very much like a contemporary novel with horror elements thrown in, which made it almost more familiar to me and less out of my comfort zone.

Surprisingly, I really loved the horror elements of the story. I honestly did not expect those to be the parts I enjoyed the most but I found it to be perfectly gory and creepy. I liked that the book wasn't filled with constant horror and gore but I found myself getting excited when I could tell those things were coming. I especially loved all of the creepy, interesting death and methods of killing people. Maybe I'm more of a horror fan that I like to think.

I also found it very surprising, especially for a Stephanie Perkins novel, that I didn't really like the romance. There wasn't anything particularly bad about it, the characters were fine together and it was written well, but it just didn't seem very necessary to the story. It was almost as though she was trying too hard to add in the cute relationship that she has become known for when I think the book would have been just as good without that aspect.

While I wasn't the biggest fan of the romance, I did really love the friendships. There is a really great friendship group in this book that I loved reading about. I want another book just about this friendship group before the events of this story. I especially loved that the friendship group included a transgender character, Darby, who was probably my favourite character and I so badly wanted more of him in the book, particularly as Stephanie Perkins' previous books have not had the most diverse cast of characters (please correct me if I'm wrong but no characters come to mind).

The biggest issue I had with this book was the focus on Makani's huge secret. We were constantly reminded about her troubled past and the huge secret that made her leave Hawaii. I was fed up hearing about this huge secret. It was built up so much that I expected something massive and I was incredibly disappointed. It was just odd and not necessary to the story. It felt like it was added in to the story to make the book a bit longer, fill up some extra space, but add nothing to the story.

I found it very odd that the killer was revealed half way through the book. I had to reread that part a couple of times to make sure I wasn't missing something. It took away from the mystery of the story but I did still enjoy the second half of the book despite knowing who the killer was. I just found it very strange, particularly as that has never happened in any mystery books I have read before so I was not expecting it.

I was expecting, however, a lot of things that happened in the book. It was a pretty generic 'slasher movie' plot and a lot of it was quite predictable. There were a lot of things that I could see coming from very early on in the book, like the ending, and I wasn't surprised by any of the deaths. The one thing I didn't see coming was the reveal of who the killer was.

Overall, I did really enjoy this book but with my expectations being so high, I did judge it very harshly while reading. I think it was a good first attempt at a horror novel and I am definitely interested to see what else Stephanie Perkins can write in this genre. I would like to read more horror from her but perhaps with less of a contemporary feel. However, this was a good starting point for me to branch out into more of the genre. I would say this is a perfect Halloween read and great for anyone who enjoys a good slasher film.