This book is my Intermezzo—my most highly anticipated release of the year from one of my all-time favorite authors! It might actually be my new favorite book of Rivers Solomon, too, which is a bar higher than the new world record pole vault and Y’ALL!!! Haunted houses! Mommy issues! Wealth as malice!! Shared sibling trauma! It was creepy and smart and perfect for #summerween and I’m seriously debating reading it again already.

Thank you SO SO MUCH to FSG for the opportunity to read and review!!

This book is less horror and more literary fiction, in my opinion. There are horror elements but its very minor in terms of how "scary" it is. Do check your trigger warnings.

Filled with generational trauma, grief, racism, mental health issues and gender idenitiy, this book packs a punch in to just 300 pages. I really enjoyed this book for the character and family study that it is. The writing is a stream of consciousness told from Ezri (with some minor POVs with Elijah, their daughter). It was so unique and a different experience to be in Ezri's head as someone who doesn't deal with the type of mental health issues she has, it was very jarring but it felt so real at the same time.

The whole time you are questioning what is true and what is made up by the characters minds and I love that. There was one thing mentioned in this book specifically that I really related to which is awful because its not a good thing, but I felt seen.

Thank you to Net Galley and Farrah, Straus, and Giroux for the eARC

I’m biased, because I love everything Rivers Solomon writes, but this book was so moving. I wasn’t completely onboard until about 80% in, and then I was 150% onboard. The narrative style of tangential stories and musings on various (very important) topics such as race, gender identity, the very notion of family and how we identify as individual people, threw me off, but I truly feel that was a “me” problem. Everything came together in the end in a way that felt natural and so very poignant. Please take care of yourself and check the TWs for this one. I trust Solomon with the toughest of topics and will continue to do so.

Are haunted houses actually filled with ghosts/evil spirits or just the lingering aftereffects of the harmful acts and tortuous events that occurred there and overwhelms the visitor that ventures into it. This novel grapples with what truly haunts us…and quite possibly, it is not the house.

Being a fan of River Solomon, I was very excited to receive an ARC of their latest offering, Model Home. The book blurb hinted at a horror novel with a sprinkling of social topics and complex characters. I found the latter to be true, but light on the horror. There was persistent suspense that propels the reader to read for closure. Within the pages, the author covers the gamut with themes steeped in drama and trauma relating to gender identity and fluidity,racism,classism, assimilation, mental illness, familial dysfunction (parent-child and sibling dynamics) and the everlasting emotional and psychological damage it can cause.

Admittedly, I thought the novel started strong, but the narrator/protagonist lost me shortly thereafter with the disjointed and unreliable flashbacks. The third act answered questions, but I found it and the conclusion unsatisfying and a bit disappointing.

Thanks to the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for an opportunity to review.

For those in search of an autumnal book with supernatural elements and social commentary...

After the deaths of their parents (ruled murder-suicide, or is something more supernatural the cause?), Ezri and her siblings return to their childhood home, only to find it haunted by the dark secrets of the past...

Literary horror told through lyrical prose, this one is dark and heavy, with themes including generational trauma, queerness, racism, and mental illness.

Overall, it's a pretty unique take on family dynamics and the haunted house.

2.5

A beautifully written novel! This book draws you right in and keeps you guessing and wondering about what all really went on within 677, but it quickly looses steam. The writing is descriptive and captivating. Rivers Solomon writes in a way where the character feels very relatable, giving great true-to-life comparisons.

As a black person, I do feel tired of horror stories where the only horror is the experience of racism. There are other unfortunate themes here, but racism seems to be the foundation of it all. Either way, it feels trite, played out, and hella predictable. I feel like I’ve read and watched enough horror stories that use this trope. Where is the creativity? I’ve read plenty of books and watched plenty of movies with this trope, and it’s becoming boring … especially since I’m reading a book to kind of step away from common lived experiences I face daily.

The last 40% felt confusing and all over the place. Very rushed. The addition of Lily really didn’t add to the story. That part also felt confusing. The ending was very predictable.

This one had me sighing, rolling my eyes, and wishing I had picked up a different book instead. 😭

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the ARC.
This is a voluntary review.

I was really scared and deeply uncomfortable reading this book about a Black family living in a wealthy White gated community.
The book tells the story of a terror campaign against the family over the course of many years. The children of the family make sense of it by believing that the house itself is causing all the horrors that befall them. The truth is even worse than their imaginings.
You need a strong stomach to read this book.

Interesting premise - and I love the cover design. Good pacing, well-written, and solid characters. I really enjoyed this novel!

Ezra, Eve, and Emmanuele avoid the haunted home they grew up in a predominately while Dallas neighborhood. Growing up there as the only black family and strange and frightening things began happening around them. Despite this, their parents were determined to stay. After Ezri receives a haunting text message from "Mother Nightmare", she travels back from the UK to check up on her parents, finding a gruesome surprise. As the siblings navigate their past and very present traumas, they begin to uncover unspoken truths. Rivers Solomon's "Model Home" twists the haunted-house story by exploring the dark effects of segregation and racism in the South. The book offers a bold look at hidden histories and follows a queer family fighting for their right to exist in an area with deep roots of white supremacy.

This was not a standard haunted house style of story involving paranormal elements such as ghosts rather the haunting and marks left by life experiences that are far too common for many people. I have never read anything by River Solomon before and will be looking for some of their other works to follow on from this as I found the writing to be very different from many books that I have read and am interested to read more.

Model Home is about siblings reuniting at the source of their trauma after a tragic event happens, forcing them to come face-to-face with their buried childhood. Gripping, tragic, and unsettling, Rivers Solomon is a force to be reckoned with. The prose is poignant but not dense. All the characters have a lot of depth to them. At times I found the pacing slow and sometimes I was a little confused at what was going on. This was an overall excellent read that will keep me thinking long after the last page.

Really loved the structure and the pace of this book; it is fascinating for me to see how certain authors sculpt the plots and writing style in ways that are original and fresh. Yes, it was a heavy, sometimes unsettling read, but this was my first Solomon book and I'm off to find more. Strong ending; nice twist; Four starts when I get a solid ending that I didn't expect. Five starts if I've enjoyed the entire journey along the ay. Thanks so much for access to this book!

_Model Home_ by Rivers Solomon is an unsettling, tragic, and unique telling of a modern haunted house. Ezri left their family home and country after a traumatizing childhood, only to be pulled back by their siblings and their concern about their parents who still live in the house that caused so much fear. Using the haunted house trope, Solomon explores racism and abuse to show the real ghosts haunting a family.

Model Home by Rivers Solomon is a haunted story that is unlike any other. It follows three siblings who have to return home after their parents die. While they are there, they have to grapple with how their past has changed their present and how their parents’ deaths may not be quite what they seem.

This is my second book by this author and much like the other book I read by them, this definitely left me thinking after the end. This book is very heavy in a way I wasn’t expecting so be mindful of that before picking this up. This book is told in a very unique style that I don’t think will appeal to everyone but I think the right audience will really love this book.

I really loved the majority of this book. I know this is marketed as horror and it definitely has some horror to it but it is much more than that. I think “unsettling” is the best word I would use to describe this book. The author is very good at word usage and I highlighted so many passages throughout this book.

My only issue with this book is that it feels a little short for the story it was telling. The end happens very quickly and left me wanting a little more. I still overall enjoyed this book and plan on grabbing a copy to annotate. I also think this book be even better with a reread knowing the full story.

I really appreciated the use of a new home as a haunted house allegorical narrative, and Solomon’s writing is beautiful and resonant. This was a five star read for me for 75% of the book, but I felt like the ending was very rushed and explained more than necessary. I would have preferred to make more connections on my own rather than have them explained to me. I also wanted to know more about Ezri’s gender identity and see the commentary on abusive cycles more profoundly based on Ezri and Elijah’s experiences. I don’t blame Solomon for this - it seems like changes an editor would ask for in a misguided attempt to make the story more “relatable.”

This is a stunning novel, as all of Rivers Solomon's works are, but it is HEAVY. It has moments of lightness and hilarity and joy sprinkled throughout, but do check content warnings before diving in to this story (particularly for child SA, grooming, and rape). The plot was astounding and so ideologically astute (of course, as with any Solomon book), and the ending staggered me. The characters were so richly developed and strange and relatable and clearly differentiated from each other and in their myriad interpersonal relationships, too. I'll be thinking about this book forever, basically, and while it isn't my favorite of their books (since Sorrowland is basically my favorite book ever), it's staggeringly good.

I was excited to get this title, I love haunted house novels, especially when you don't know if the house is haunted by ghosts or by family trauma. I am definitely going to read more by Rivers Solomon in the future. They have a very unique writing style, would recommend giving it a read!

I was initially excited by the premise of Model Home and thought it would be a book I would really enjoy. I liked the depiction of the house and the mysteries surrounding it. I also really enjoyed the ending as I didn't see it coming. However, It took me a while to read as I wasn't too keen on the writing structure and I found it hard to follow. I was also confused by the lack of speech marks in some chapters which resulted in me not knowing when anyone was talking and who it was.

A complete change of genre for Rivers Solomon and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it! This book was haunting and just brilliant, the twist and turns had me on the edge of my seat. There is nothing I love more in a horror book than an unreliable narrator. This book ticked every box for what I want in a horror book, and for that I would recommend this greatly.

Spectacular storytelling in the unique voice of Rivers Solomon. The story is perfect but the prose is the standout. I loved the characters, both human and inhuman. I enjoyed my reading experience so much that I told a friend that she should preorder a copy in time for the fall season. This novel couldn’t have been published at a better time. Its social commentary is timely and has been timely.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this novel ahead of its publication.