There's Someone Inside Your House

by Stephanie Perkins

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I thought There's Someone Inside Your House was just okay.

Makani Young moved to Nebraska where she's far away from her mysterious past and her negligent parents. Here, she lives with her grandmother and is just trying to resume a normal life. She's got two friends and a crush and everything seems to be going fine until the serial killer shows up. With teens dying and the whole town afraid, it seems like there's no way to be safe and nowhere to run.

As far as a thriller goes, it had its moments. There were a couple really vivid, well-written, gross murdery scenes that fulfilled its requirements as a horror novel, but this one just felt like a contemporary romance at its core. Despite the serial killer on the side, the real plot seemed to be the Deep Dark Secret that Makani had been hiding from her new friends and boyfriend. And even though it was not good, it was built up so much that by the time she told *that* story, I was completely underwhelmed.

I was here for the slasher story and not for the romance that permeated this book, so for the most part, I just wanted to get on with it. When the killer is revealed about halfway through the book, the rest of the story started to drag for me. A lot of the timings were strange, and there really weren't any surprises here. Overall, it was an okay story, but I think that you need to go into it expecting a contemporary first, and a horror novel second.