2.5 stars. It was fine, I suppose, but failed at being really compelling.

Overall I really wanted to like this, because I LOVE cheesy horror movies and there's not enough YA horror out there, but it didn't land the execution.

I read There’s Someone Inside Your House almost 3 years ago, the days after I met Stephanie Perkins for the first time. The whole this was surreal and I think that is why I have had such a hard time reviewing it. I’m not a horror/slasher book kind of person but TSIYH was just fun (and I’m aware that is odd to say). It brought me back to those great Kevin Williamson written horror movies with some of those Stephanie Perkins’ contemp moments. It is not the same experience as I had with Anna/Lola/Isla. It is a completely different book yet I still felt Steph when reading it. I can’t really say much else because a) I don’t want to give anything away from the book and b) I’m still kind of a loss for words from meeting Stephanie to reading the book right after. I just know I need something new from her and I need it now.

2.5-3 stars. A gruesome read, but ultimately not too scary, There's Someone Inside Your House is a solid Halloween/slasher book...but one I wish had more suspense and character development.

It's really hard for me to rate There's Someone Inside Your House because a) I'm not super into horror or anything related to horror b) I feel like I read it under the worst conditions possible. I've been in a terrible book slump and I feel like any book would have suffered. That said, this book took me ages to get into - like 170 pages. I never felt fully connected with any of the characters, and unlike the usual Stephanie Perkins read, I also didn't get any feels. It was very much a "going-through-the-motions" read for me, which is strange because it had elements of Stephanie's work that I usually like. That is, it had a solid romance and a cute friend group and a lot of elements of the Wes Anderson movie Scream, which is one of the only horror movies I do like.

I think for me, the problem was that the banter and the character connections were missing. Every time I would get to a place where I thought I was into the lives of central teens Makani Young - a Hawaiian transport to the small town of Osborne, Nebraska - and Ollie Larson, a pink-haired boy who bags groceries and had a secret relationship with Makani over the summer - that connection would get interrupted. If you're curious about the general structure of the book and don't mind light spoilers, here's my explanation: <spoiler>the nature of the book is that we find out a little bit about certain characters and their lives before they get killed. And those chapters are interspersed with Makani's third-person narrative about her life. So each time I got to know a bit more about her, that connection would be interrupted. Kinda like what would happen in real-life if murders occurred in a real town - but for fiction, it left me feeling jarred and hanging.</spoiler>. And that lack of connection really extended to every character. No one was as cute or banter-y or funny as I hoped they would be.

That said, I did enjoy the description in Steph's writing - from the atmosphere of the town to the very gory descriptions of dismemberment. To me, that was the scariest part of the book. But other than that, this was a pretty tame horror book - I didn't feel like there was enough suspense to make me really terrified, and unfortunately, <spoiler>I also never felt there was enough tension to make me believe that anyone I cared about was in real danger.</spoiler>

Overall, this was an okay read and I wish I liked it more, because it does show some promise for what could be a great teen book. There are some issues in here that I think Steph dealt with and thought a about a lot, but never fully developed. Ultimately, though, this one was a bit of a miss for me. Worth reading if you like horror or love Stephanie Perkins, but otherwise, I would consider it a library read or just a pass.