It’s not often I read something that leaves me thinking, “Oh, holy shit. What did I just read?” But Just Like Home left me doing exactly that. In the best way possible. This story places you dead center in what may very well be the most toxic family outside of Williamson County, Texas. I mean, this family is JACKED UP. Daddy was a notorious serial murderer. There’s almost no way Mama didn’t know (although she claims publicly that she didn’t). Vera’s no peach, and now there’s some lowly parasite living in the guesthouse pilfering bits and pieces of the notorious Crowder house to make his exploitative art.

And then there’s the house itself. I love a story where the house gets the character treatment, and that is certainly the case in Just Like Home. Crowder house is honestly terrifying. It holds more secrets than a high school girl’s hair.

Actually, pretty much all the things that Janice and Ian have to say about Gretchen Weiner in the ‘Katy learns about the Plastics’ scene in Mean Girls kind of applies to Crowder house. Like, she really does know everything about everyone.

I love how awful Vera’s parents are. And I love even more that they’re nuanced-awful. It’s not that they’re all bad. Even Vera’s dad (who you may recall is a serial murderer) has his high points. He cherishes his daughter. He spends time with her (not killing – they fish and stuff). She loves him endlessly. Her mom comes off to me as having less positive traits, but…I’m sure they’re there. She’s just so bitter and cruel and relentlessly nasty. But sometimes you can sort of see someone who loves her daughter, but is just irreparably broken inside. I swear, it’s sometimes almost visible.

If books with wild endings and shitty people are your thing, I don’t know that you’ll ever find a story more suited to you than Just Like Home. This book is straight bonkerballs in the most gripping, beautifully written and fleshed out (ewww) way possible.

This review publishes on my website January 25, 2023 at 10:30 AM CST

I thought this book was very interesting, I wasn't sure where it was taking me, but I enjoyed the ride. The whole storyline was unrealistic and not relatable. I think that what made me not put it down and reach for something else.

Vera was a good point of view to read from, she was different from any character I've ever read. I liked her whole inner monologue and seeing her thought process of the happenings.

Overall, I recommend this one if you like mysterious, unrealistic books. It was definitely categorized correctly as a horror book, that's for sure. I found it more creepy than horrific, but that's just my opinion.

Vera has spent a long period of time intentionally avoiding her mother and her childhood home.  However, when her mother begs her to come home, she returns to the home of her deceased father, the serial killer. When Vera arrives, she finds her mother is not alone. An artist has moved into the guest home and like a parasite is feeding on the history of the house and her mother. When Vera starts finding notes around the house in her father's handwriting, she realizes that she will have to dig into the very foundations of the Crowder House if she ever wants to be free again. 

Sarah Gailey is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors.  Her pacing is smart, giving this thriller just the correct amount of creepy and fascinating. 

Just Like Home is now available.

Vera returns to her childhood home after many years away to care for her dying mother. This is no typical house - Vera’s father was a serial killer and he killed in their house. There’s so much more going on here than you think, and no one is what they seem. I like horror and I liked this book, but it’s definitely unlike any other horror novel I’ve read.

This book was so frustrating. I really wanted to like it but the story lacked any depth. I felt like the ending didn't really tie up very well. Overall disappointed with this one.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having enjoyed Gailey's previous novel, I was looking forward to this one. While the first half felt a bit slow, the second half really grabbed my attention and made up for it! The ending fit perfectly, as well.

3 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2022/12/19/just-like-home-by-sarah-gailey/
My Five Word TL:DR Review: Disturbingly dark, haunting and compelling

So Just Like Home isn’t my first Gailey read nor will it be my last. In some respects, and to be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure that I liked this and yet I was glued to the pages and can’t deny that the author has come up with a compelling read.

I’m not going to discuss the plot other than to say this is about a woman, called back to her childhood home where her mother is dying. This is a strange house. Once home to a serial killer unspeakable crimes have taken place behind it’s closed doors and if it’s possible for a house to absorb the evil, to become a haunting itself then I’d say this particular home has turned into something creepy, not to mention, the house itself has become something of a macabre museum.

The main character is Vera and her story is told in alternating timelines. We flip backwards and forwards to a much younger version and observe the strained relationship Vera has with her mother whilst enjoying a close bond with her father. The later storyline is about Vera’s reluctant return home at the request of her mother. The other main character is a young man, an artist, who seems to have wangled himself into the affections of Vera’s mother and is undertaking a project that involves an art installation using bits and pieces of house memorabilia.

I’m not going to elaborate too much more as I don’t really want to give anything away but I would say that this does make for a disturbing read and there are numerous elements that compel you to keep reading. I found myself fascinated by Vera, I couldn’t make my mind up if she was a reliable narrator or not, she came across at times as scared to be in the house but at the same time as her secrets are slowly revealed I found that impossible to believe. To be truthful I actually didn’t like any of the characters here and this is something that undoubtedly makes me struggle to like a book. I mean, on the one hand, you’re not really supposed to like these characters, they’re hard and unforgiving, but on the other hand I wanted somebody here to redeem themselves a little. If I manage to put those particular feelings to one side I can confess that I was hooked, I wasn’t maybe pleasantly hooked, but I simply couldn’t stop reading. The thirst for clarity pushed me onwards. I was fascinated by Vera’s childhood and desperate to know what really happened all those years ago.

So, although I wouldn’t say that I particularly enjoyed this book, it’s dark, a bit dismal, a little slow to start and is populated with characters that are impossible to like, it is undoubtedly a hypnotic read with startlingly eloquent prose and a shocking ending that brings a touch of the supernatural. If you like your horror to come with a touch of weird then give this one a try.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

This book has a slow burn but it is worth it. Stick with it. This is a story about Vera who returns home upon her dying mother's request and then the horror begins. This book was worth sticking to and got much better about 65% of the way thru. At this point I was not able to put the book down.

I was truly looking forward to read this book, but I feel that it was too slow for my liking and I had a hard time getting into the story.

Vera has returned home to her dying mother Daphne, who seems to really dislike her daughter. Crowder House has a notorious history where very bad things happened while Vera was a little girl. Not only she lost her father to the evils of the house, but her mother seems to despise her and blames her for everything that went wrong all those years ago. Now that Vera is back, she is trying to come to terms with the horrors she witnessed as a young girl and to differentiate what was real and what was not. As Vera untangles her family drama, she realizes that she is more in sync with the house that she realized at first, and she is now the only one who can save the home she grew up in before an outsider takes ownership of the place her father built from scratch.

While this story was definitely scary, I also felt like it dragged for too long. The first two thirds of the book are very slow, and I didn't really started to get into the story until halfway the book. I wish more of the supernatural aspects of the book had been revealed earlier as it made it hard to figure out what was really happening. I found myself skipping some parts because Vera was in a constant internal monologue mode that made it hard to follow. She was also very unlikable and didn't really provide any insight about why her relationship with her mother was so bad until towards the end, so it was hard to feel sympathy for her. The book is told in dual timelines: present life and Vera as a young girl, and I was more engaged with the past timeline because it provides more details about what was really happening with the house and Vera. Overall, I felt that the book was too long but once it picks up, it gets easier to read.

This story already starts out odd, what with having a serial killer for a father and a distant mother, but the author takes you deep into the life inside the walls of this house and introduces you to a horror you didn't expect. Sometimes, the safest place to be is inside the haunted house.

Thank you for the publisher for a free E-book I’m exchange for an honest review, This book is such a RIDEEE.
Creepy house ✔️
Wild family drama ✔️
Cryptic like creature ✔️

This books has a lot of twist and turn and overall a creepy story. If you are the fan of things that go bump in the night this is the book for you!

Sarah Gailey the queen of the unexpected and weird. A modern day haunting of hill house. Thank you to Tor for the gifted ARC my honest review.

✨ Review ✨ Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey; Narrated by Xe Sands

Vera comes home to Crowder House, the house she grew up in and that her father built, because her mother is dying. She clearly has a lot of feelings about returning home -- messy familial relationships, unease about the house, and some great traumas from her past. The book weaves and winds through Vera's past and present as she comes to terms with the ghosts of this house and the great horrors she's faced within.

This was delightfully creepy -- my favorite kind of horror, where it hovers on the edge of reality with a creepy gothic house looming large. I really enjoyed listening to it, and flew through it. The story unraveled at just the right pace, and it made me feel the feels alongside frustration. If you like gothic-style horror, check this one out!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: horror light, gothic, mystery/thriller
Location: the Crowder House (small town somewhere)
Pub Date: out now

Read this if you like:
⭕️ messy family relationships
⭕️ creepy gothic houses with weird mysteries within
⭕️ monsters that lurk in the dark
⭕️ horror light

Thanks to Tor Books, MacMillan Audio, and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

I love a good horror novel mixed with some familial drama, so this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. Unfortunately for me, however, it fell a bit flat. I was under the impression that this story would revolve around the fact that her father was a serial killer - I didn’t expect it to be paranormal. If I had known that going in, I may have enjoyed it a lot more.

With the synopsis I was so excited for this one. A creepy house? Check please! But, this ultimately fell pretty flat for me. I felt as though Gailey was trying to hard to mash things together. It felt too much like a true crime podcast which is incredibly overdone at this day in age. All around the book was pretty solid, but again, wasn’t my cup of tea.

What a ride, this was much different then I had expected, it was full of twists and had an odd ending. I thought the pace was a bit slow , great possibilities but didn't work for me.

3 stars

I asked some friends for "bad mom" book recommendations to ~deal with my own trauma via fiction~ (lol), and among the titles given to me was this one. I'd read Sarah Gailey's UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED earlier this year and really enjoyed it, despite the fact that it's not at all in my typical genre wheelhouse, so I was really excited to check this horror-y title out - horror definitely <i>is</i> my typical genre, & THE BOOK IS PINK!!

I went into this knowing nothing beyond that the mom "sort of sucked", and I think that's the best way to do it honestly. The lack of knowledge kept me on the edge of my seat, unable to gain solid footing, flipping the pages trying to fully flesh out a story being delivered to me in deliciously -and agonizingly - slow little bits.

The atmosphere here feels very southern gothic - dark and spooky for sure, but with a cloyingly sweetness not unlike lemonade on a humid summer day. I loved the way the house was described, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the relationship between Vera and her father - however unorthodox it or he may have been.

The full ending reveal GOT ME! I won't say too much about it because I don't want to spoil it, but I really loved how wild and intense things got, and how the story developed. It was weird and gross and fun and I just loved it, so good.

This has definitely solidified the author as a must-buy from me moving forward -- I don't even care what the genre is, because they've shown that they're able to handle whatever they do perfectly. I already have THE ECHO WIFE on my shelf, waiting to be read soon!

Just Like Home is eerie from beginning to end. There's a sense of suspense and tension immediately to try to figure out what her dad did. Not only that, but the chapters which are these past flashbacks have a sense of memories and childlike naivety. The ways in which we believe the best of our parents, believe what they tell us about how the world works. But as readers who see these memories for the rose tinted visions they are, can sense the sinister, the off putting, the tension.

And that's my main impression of Just Like Home. It's about the things that can happen and we wouldn't know the things we don't want to see. The lies we accept. All combined with this feeling of knowing that someone isn't who we thought. If there's one thing you take away from this book review, just know you could cut the suspense in Just Like Home with a knife. It feels tangible like something that rips itself off the pages and sits in a room with you, looming.

Thank you so much for my ARC! I was so intrigued by the premise of this book! It was a true slow burn, and the details were amazing, especially about the character of the house! There was a lot of development and dialogue to create this horrific book. There was a lot of symbolism throughout the book and I enjoyed the dynamic between the daughter and parents. Overall, a good read!

This feels like the author was trying to mix the Haunting of Hill House, a true crime podcast and the 2006 kids movie Monster House.

The atmosphere was appropriately creepy, as is Vera's back story in general. But some of the current day things and twist didn't work as well.