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

Synopsis from Good Reads:

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.

Well. That was a huge disappointment. I’m just going to list all the ways it disappointed me.

–This was basically a Contemporary Romance with a little bit of murder thrown in. It was not in the least bit scary or even suspenseful. The killer’s pre-killing ritual didn’t really make a lot of sense. A nod to Charles Manson, I guess? It still wasn’t scary.

–The characters were boring and unlikable. It reminded me a little bit of Lola and the Boy Next Door in trying too hard to make the characters seem quirky and unique (speaking of LATBND, there is a brief cameo mention from that novel which was one of the few things I liked). There is just enough diversity thrown in to make sure the mean kids on Twitter don’t get mad.

-Makani, the main character, has been exiled to her Grandma’s in Nebraska after some horrific event in her past that is often vaguely alluded to. She lives in constant fear of someone finding out what she did and thinks it might be why she’s a target of the killer. It’s eventually revealed and it’s…STUPID. It’s so stupid. It made me start to wonder if this book was supposed to be a spoof and I had been reading it with the wrong intentions. But, no. Unfortunately it’s supposed to be serious.

-The romance. The romance really did feel like the main focus of the plot. I didn’t necessarily dislike Makani and Ollie’s developing relationship, but I didn’t love them together, either. Ollie was a more subdued version of the swoony male lead Perkins is known for and in another type of book I might have liked him a little more. There is a scene where they make out a bit during a group prayer that I felt was really disrespectful.

-The murders. I have read several reviews that talked about how gory this book was so I was really expecting some intense scenes. Now I’m wondering if we read the same book? The murder scenes were incredibly brief with about the least amount of detail you can have while still staying in this genre. I don’t want it to seem like I really enjoy a lot of graphic violence, but if you’re going to have a slasher-inspired murder scene, you better make me squirm in discomfort and maybe feel a little sick. Instead I felt nothing but a little bored.

-The killer. The identity was revealed much earlier than I thought it would be and it took with it a lot of opportunity for tension and suspense (though by now I don’t think this book was really capable of that much suspense, anyways). The identity didn’t really have a lot of impact and the motivation for the killing was really lame. 

Overall, There’s Someone Inside Your House was a tremendous disappointment. It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t suspenseful, it wasn’t unique, it wasn’t clever, and it wasn’t very enjoyable. I was thinking that I would give this book 2 stars, but the only good thing I can really think to say about it is that I like the cover. I can appreciate the author’s effort to write something outside of her normal genre, but I definitely think she should stick with romance from now on.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 1 Star