**4.5-stars**

Coming back to her childhood home is a very difficult decision for Vera Crowder. There's a lot of hurdles mentally to overcome. As she stands before it, ready to enter for the first time in 12-years, she's filled with doubts. Her mother, Daphne, is extremely ill and in her final days she seems to want Vera by her side; odd considering she never showed interest in Vera before.

In fact, their relationship has been hostile for years, not your typical mother-daughter relationship, but Vera's whole family history is complicated. That can happen when your father is an infamous serial killer. Making matters worse is the fact that Vera's mother has a tenant living on the property, some sort of artist whose interest in the house makes Vera very uncomfortable. Regardless of his annoying presence, being back in the home definitely stirs up a lot of unresolved issues for Vera. She feels things in the house, it's unsettling. She's remembering things she had forgotten.

Through past and present perspectives the Reader is filled in on the truth behind the Crowder house, Vera's family and unconventional upbringing. Just Like Home was a highly anticipated release for me. I knew with Sarah Gailey's impressive writing skills and imagination this would be a memorable story.

It absolutely was. I was drawn in from the very first paragraph. It feels morose, Vera is not necessarily a happy camper. There's not a lot to be happy about in this situation, but it was absolutely captivating in its quiet intensity. The way Gailey weaved this story together was so good. There's a lot of balls in the air, as the Reader you are learning so much in every moment. There are no chapters wasted.

I loved being in Vera's head as she reflected on her life and the past timeline was so gripping to watch play out. In some ways it felt like a simple story, like the way it unfolded, but when you take the time to think about it, there are so many layers.

Most interesting to me was the relationship that Vera had with her father. An assumption may be that because he was a killer, he would be a harsh and dominating force in her life, but that's not quite the case. Additionally, to see the tension between her and her mother, it almost seemed upside-down from what you would expect. And then there was the whole dynamic between the mother and father, which was equally as interesting.

One of the most important aspects for me in any story is atmosphere. I need a strong atmosphere to truly be swept up into a story. I want to feel it, smell it, taste it and generally, be unsettled by it. Gailey nailed the atmosphere here. This house, oh my word, make no mistake, the house has soul, the house has energy. I always love when the sense of place is this thick in a story. A great example would be The Overlook Hotel in The Shining; where the place is as impactful as any of the characters.

I really had to think about this one after I finished it in order to decide on a rating. Initially, I was thinking it started too slow, but looking back, I feel it was appropriately done. It is a bit of a slow burn, but the payoff is so over-the-top, vivid and immersive, that it just makes sense this way. Gailey crushed this. It was so freaking weird and creative in such an incredible way.

Thank you so very much to the publisher, Tor and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I will remember this one for a long time to come!

This was a solid horror thriller. If you liked Mexican Gothic -- the weirdness, the grossness, the scary house -- then check this one out too. I think what doesn't bump it up for me is there were several questions I still had at the end of the book that distracted me too much.

Thank you to Tor Books and Netgalley for the electronic copy.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the advanced reading copy of Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey.

Vera comes back to the home she was raised in. A home where Vera hasn’t been welcome in years. A home haunted by the past decisions of her father. Now she has new challenges to face.

This is a story about scary basements, monsters under the bed, and haunted houses. It was griping and fast paced. I loved the ending. I would recommend this to all fans of horror.

I will be recommending this to my followers who are obsessed with horror and thrillers. Did not know where this book was going but it turned out amazing.

⭐⭐.5/5

• intriguing premise but fell flat
• sloooow paced

This book started off way too descriptive with not a ton of dialogue. I had a hard time getting into it. I did like how the house felt like a character... creepy and dark. Lots of family trauma here. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right mindset while reading!

🗣️ Thank you to @netgalley @macmillanusa and @torbooks for the opportunity to read and review this book via gifted eARC! All opinions are honest and my own.

LOVED this creepy novel!!
Gailey does not disappoint with this one - I really loved Magic for Liars and the Echo Wife, and am impressed by the breadth of Gailey's imagination and writing.
Vera has returned home after her mother shut the door in her face over a decade ago. The mother, Daphne, now dying in the dining room, needs Vera to help close up the house. Through a slow-burn uncovering of Vera's childhood in alternating chapters, we learn of Vera's unusual (to say the least!) upbringing that led to the current relationship, or non-relationship, that she now has with Daphne.
It's an onion of a horror novel, with bone-chilling descriptions of nightmares and panic attacks that one can't really tell are real or in Vera's head. A very creepy and satisfying ending ties it all up nicely.
Absolutely loved this one.

Brilliantly creepy!
Vera returns to her childhood home at the request of her mother.. it’s clear there is no love lost between the two, but her mother is dying. Dear old moms behavior takes second place to the memories of Vera’s serial killer father.

Straight out, I will say I'm not sure what genre this book fits into. Having read it, I would classify it as horror/paranormal. But it seems to be marketed as a gothic thriller. Either way, just know this book definitely has a creep factor.

From the beginning, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with the Crowder House and the family that lived inside it. The main protagonist, Vera, returns to the home to care for her dying mother, Daphne. But her views on the house vary based on the timeline. In the present, she initially seems to dread returning and has some fear about what is contained within the walls of the home. In the past, while some of that fear is present, Vera is more curious about what goes on in this home that her father tries to hide from her. It is evident, evil has a home at Crowder House.

While I knew early on that the father was hiding something very dark, it’s hard to forgive Daphne and Vera for their own roles. And while I disliked both characters for their actions, their character arcs were intriguing.

The author is slow to reveal the truths of this house, but even the small details gave me goosebumps. Particularly with tar references (I won’t go into the details on that since some of you are more squeamish than me). Even with the lead up, nothing could have prepared me for what the full story would be about this home. It was wildly imaginative, fascinating and disgusting, all rolled into one. (The cover fits the storyline perfectly).

This book may not be for everyone, but if you enjoy gothic horror, this one is worth checking out.

Wow! What did I just read. This author is new to me. This book was out of my regular wheelhouse, but it was a fast paced page turner. It was a little out there for me, but it is original. Overall a good book.

Thanks to MacMillan for an electronic version of the book via NetGalley.

It’s a 3.5 from me. I never really connected with Vera, the main character, but I did keep reading because I wanted to know what would happen. This reminded me a bit of T Kingfisher’s horror, just minus the characters that she writes so well. Was NOT a fan of the body horror elements.

This is an odd book that won't be everyone's cup of tea but I realllllly liked it. I think what worked so well for me is that Gailey is such an evocative writer. There are passages that literally made me feel dizzy and disoriented, and there are passages that made me think:

"HOLY CRAP YES I remember feeling this exact same way when I was a kid!"

Gailey also inserts just......some really mundane things that become very creepy and I won't ever think of them the same ever again. Specifically here: grease and lemonade. And maybe bike locks.

I won't say more. Read this for the vibes and come prepared to suspend a lot of disbelief. Not all questions are answered, so you need to be okay with that going in as well. But really. The vibes are worth it in my opinion.

Thanks so much to Tor and NetGalley for the review copy!

This book hit me like a punch to the gut. Sarah Gailey has crafted an incredibly effective slow burn horror tale in which the family tensions hit just as hard as the unexplained paranormal phenomena. I think this book is best experienced cold, as I did, so I don't want to go into too much detaiI

claustrophobic, atmospheric, fundamentally about the horrors of coming back home after you are an adult. repetition used to absolute maximum effect. some parts of this book made me feel physically sick, but it's not necessarily gory, just kind of, nausea-inducing. in a positive way? I was very lucky to get this eARC as both an ebook and an audiobook, and I kept having to put the audiobook down to read the chapters in the ebook because I could not stand the tension. Still thinking about the ending. Not sure if I like it. But in a horror book, are you supposed to? Four and a half stars, rounded down for NetGalley/Goodreads.

I have such mixed feelings about Just Like a Home by Sarah Gailay. It kept me reading and entertained but I was not pleased with how it ended. I don’t want to give spoilers so I’ll just say one part was so perfect, if it wasn’t clouded by another part that I felt was too contrived. Vera is an interesting character and I think we could have benefitted from seeing more from her life during her Crowder House exile.

Just Like Home is a book that crawls under your skin and lives there. I liked the Echo Wife, but I really, really enjoyed Just Like Home. Gailey excels at atmospheric writing and building tension, and this book was a fantastic example of that. I felt the longer I didn't know what I was afraid of, the more terrified I was.

I loved the familial tension and conflict, the flashbacks to the main character's unusual childhood, and the uncertainty as to whether the threat was real or imagined. This was a slow burn of a horror novel, and it was unsettling and enjoyable from start to finish.

Vera has long been estranged from her home after her mother told her to leave and never return. Now, Vera's mother is sick and dying and when she calls Vera to finally come home once again, Vera goes. When she arrives at the house her father built, she's met with a deluge of family secrets and history that still, all these years later, haven't fully been put to rest.

Vera is ready to move on after her mother's passing, but some things are not staying buried in the past, and as Vera begins to look upon things that happened with new eyes, an unwelcome stranger threatens to bring the house crumbling down around her.

Just Like Home, like much of Sarah Gailey's other work, relies a lot upon our initial perceptions and then loves to slowly dismantle those perceptions page by page as all expectations are completely shattered. I went into this book thinking of Vera a certain way. Ready to find her a sympathetic character coming home in the midst of her mother dying, having to reconcile with a tragic familial past. But there is so much more nuance to her character and Sarah Gailey deftly builds upon Vera and her backstory as things go along. By the end, I was looking at Vera with completely new eyes and it makes me want to go back a re-read the whole story again with this new perspective.

I really loved the intrinsic connection between a house (the place you live) and the home (the family and life you build - often within that house). They cross each other and overlap and much like in this story, often it's difficult to tell where one ends and another begins. It's also a perfect setting for a horror story because it challenges the places in which you're supposed to feel comfortable, supposed to feel safe. It takes that comfort away and gives us this chilling "otherness". What happens when you're home is not the place you can go to get away anymore? What happens when you're so enmeshed within the home that you cannot tell where the horror is coming from?

Sarah Gailey does a fantastic job of tackling these big ideas but making them palatable.

The story is slow to unfold its secrets. This almost ups the anticipation factor as it barrels towards the conclusion and final confrontation you know is coming.

Overall, another good and thought-provoking read from Sarah Gailey.

Vera goes back home to meet her mother, the very same house where her father, a serial killer lived. But there is a new tenant as well and things start getting eerie once there are notes in her father's handwriting. The plot is so unique and intriguing that readers will be hooked right away. So obviously I had to know how it ends and there is a big twist at the end that will blow your mind away. Oh yeah, it was creepy without a doubt! I liked the dual timeline but there was a lot of info that we did not really need. It was more about a dysfunctional relationship between parents and the daughter who go through such a crazy, horrifying and disturbing experience.

Like everything Gailey writes, this book took the story I was expecting to read, tossed it out the window, and handed me something infinitely stranger, darker, and better.

This book kept me awake - not only because I didn't have the ability to put it down when it was bedtime, but also because when I finished it in the middle of the night, heart pounding, I lay awake thinking, "What? What. Sarah. WHAT?"

I wasn't anticipating the supernatural elements, which I think was my own fault. There are plenty of hints, but for some reason my brain was looking for Realistic Explanations. I guess just a note to readers: shit gets weird, get on board.

This book is weird, it's dark, it's....gooey? IYKYK.

Atmospheric, strange, and full of uncomfortable emotions. I loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC copy.

I read this over the last weekend, and picked it up because I've enjoyed some of Sarah Gailey's books before and a spooky haunted house story sounded interesting. Well, I will tell you that I did not want to put this book down! I was gripped from the beginning, and had to keep reading as more and more was revealed. I have also read quite a bit of horror, and this was the first time I was actually scared. I would not read this in bed, and was glad to be at a friend's house while reading it so I was not alone.

I highly recommend this book to people who love a good haunted house story, stories about serial killers, strained families, and when you just need a book to keep you up all night reading. I recommend not reading this alone in your bed.

Hmm…how to explain this book and my feelings. I couldn’t put it down so there’s that and that is a big one for me. The overall strangeness of this book had me so curious about where the storyline was going but I think I wasn’t prepared. Equal parts creepy, gross, and confusing had me all over the place but I kind of dug it!

I don’t do a ton of horror/paranormal so it’s outside my wheelhouse but I enjoyed the book overall so I’d recommend it! Just don’t ask me what the hell happened…