In an effort to better understand horror as a genre that is distinct from supernatural and urban fantasy1, I’ve been trying to find more horror novels and this one came in one of those lists of recommendations!
The story follows Iris Hollow, the youngest of three sisters. As children they vanished for a month and returned without ever finding out what happened. Her two sisters left home early, leaving Iris behind though they still kept in touch. So when her two sisters, Vivi and Grey, are supposed to be back in town and Grey never shows, they are worried and have to . As the mystery of where their sister went unfolds, Vivi and Iris start to learn just what happened to them all those years ago.
I thought this was a story with a lot of interesting concepts. The touches of supernatural elements that each of the sisters had and how it manifested differently based on how they decided to use it was fantastic. I like that the mystery of what happened to them was not a driving factor of their lives until there was motivation for it and that they all seemed to have… maybe not normal lives, but lives that made sense outside of their disappearance.
It’s also the second book in a row I’ve read that hinges on the concept of cuckoos which… I don’t know how I feel about that.
Overall, I liked it! I wasn’t that creeped out or scared or anything like that, but the story was interesting and the concepts and the way they were explored were a lot of fun.
- And to better understand why people think some of my stuff is firmly in the horror category [↩]