It’s short and sweet (and sour) and that’s what makes this novel so special. It’s got one of the most unsettling POVs I’ve read in a while. It starts weird and only gets weirder from there.

It’s a great Halloween read. It’s got an Adams Family aesthetic (weird family in a mansion ostracized from their community) but with a less comedic tone.

It was strange to be inside myself, walking steadily and rigidly past the fence, putting my feet down strongly but without haste that they might have noticed, to be inside and know that they were looking at me; I was hiding very far inside but I could hear them and see them still from one corner of my eye. I wished they were all lying there dead on the ground.

The story focuses on the three remaining members of the Blackwood family: Merricat, her sister Constance and their Uncle Julian in the aftermath of a poisoning that killed off the other Blackwoods prior to the events of the novel.

Their cousin Charles shows up, he’s a bit of a dick and hijinks follow.

Constance’s agoraphobia, Julian’s deteriorating mental state and Merricat’s general oddness feel extremely real (clearly coming from the author’s lived experience) and these characters came to life on the page for me.

I can’t praise this novel enough, it’s great. Please do yourself a favor and read it.