So her love for the book, the great reviews, that eerie cover, that strange title, and of course the fact that it’s horror (plus that blurb is GREAT!!), I was SO in and I one-clicked it, price be damned!!! 😂
At first, I found it intriguing. A strait-laced, reclusive woman (dare I say dowdy?) nearing 50 years old, feeling defeated in her age.
I’ve always been here, always reliable, always low maintenance. I don’t rock the boat, I don’t make waves, I go along to get along, I am a Good Girl Who Knows Her Place,
Dejected, discarded, noticing that society doesn’t acknowledge people like her anymore (unless negatively – like blaming her age/hormonal changes on her “issues”).
She’s lonely and a little strange…
I want to be normal. Normal people have use. Normal people help others and are thanked and welcomed and cherished and loved. It won’t be easy but that’s the life I deserve.
her only friends being her “loved ones” (little children figurines that she named, love dearly, told her worries to, and took advice from, every single day). She could “hear” them speak to her.
…the voices of my Loved Ones. They are always trying to remind me how to be better, how to be normal, how to be Good. They’re always looking out for me, even when I resent them for it.
Also, she hears other voices. Inner voices. Her voice… or…?
It says, You should care, Mary. Your life is almost over, and you barely even lived it.
I hate this voice. It sends a shudder through me. I’m no stranger to voices in my head—you live alone long enough, you start to develop your own personal chorus—but this particular voice? It’s like … an undervoice. It doesn’t even always speak in words. Sometimes I want to ask it, Who are you, anyway? Because even though it’s always been with me, I recognize it as somehow separate. Alien. And lately it seems to be getting louder.
She also developed a strange affliction. She can’t look in a mirror without also seeing her face falling, sloughing off… deteriorating, causing her to pass out every time. In fact, every time she looked at any middle-aged woman, she would see the same thing happening to them.
Then… she gets a call from her estranged aunt (one that raised her as a child in Arizona) but that she ran far away from when she had the opportunity. Her aunt is extremely sick and needs her help and she promises to pay her nicely for the aid. Reluctant and dreading the return (after living in solace, quietly and on her terms, in NY) she accepts.
And that’s where her world changes for good (but not necessarily for the better). Or does it? I dunno… you decide. 😉
Something bad happened there when she was a child (serial killer stuff where the killer would cut the entire face off of his female victims etc etc..) so, Mary feels a constant sense of dread and curiosity and begins investigating, and in the process, finds out a lot about herself…
You’d better not be starting your shit again. What does that even mean?
and her own childhood, the formation of her “being”, after being relentlessly bullied.
Those three girls, laser focused on me. Making my life even more miserable than it already was. With their childish, taunting voices, their hallway shoves, their chants about things they probably didn’t even understand at that age; they just knew the language of abuse.
The only people who noticed me.
Also, she suddenly now sees… certain… “ghosts”.
Before I can stop myself, the words tumble out of my mouth in a hoarse whisper:
“You see them, too?”
Anyway… all hell eventually breaks loose, and it would… in a horror book. 😉 I’ll let you experience it in it’s horror-glory.
Did it scare me? Not at all. I was somewhat bored throughout (and especially when the action kicked in), and preferred the parts where Mary was uncovering truths and realizations about herself, and her aunt.
I found myself having to backup, and re-read parts. I don’t know if it was so subtly written at times, or so repetitive that I’d blank out of certain revelations, so I’d have to backtrack.
It felt like the book that would never end, especially when the crazy kicked in, but there was a whole purpose to the madness, I suppose. A new story being told.
3 stars <— I finished it, I enjoyed some parts (the social commentary and personal introspection of the main character – a middle aged woman re-discovering herself and her value). No real big “twist” (well… there was a twist – maybe even 2 but to me, nothing jaw-dropping. I wasn’t excited, and I was forcing myself to finish once it got crazy).
I’m still looking for my perfect horror book (super-scary, but also so clever with twists). My search continues…
➔➔➔ Looking for more of my must-read recommendations? Browse my 5 star and 4.5 star and 4 starreviews. 😀
➔➔➔ Love this genre? Check out more of my horror or thriller features and reviews on my blog!