(no subject)

rachelmanija's recent post about The September House reminded me that I've also been meaning to write it up!

This book begins with our heroine Margaret grimly facing down the prospect of a visit from her adult daughter Katherine. It's not that she doesn't love Katherine! It's just that Katherine is a bit difficult at the best of times, and now she's fresh from a lesbian breakup, and she's going to want explanations for where her father is, and why Margaret has not mentioned that he is not in fact in their house where he is expected to be, and she's also probably not going to understand about the blood that drips from the walls and the ghost housekeeper and the creepy dead children that sometimes shriek and try to bite you.

Margaret doesn't have a problem with the blood-dripping walls and the creepy dead children. She has always dreamed of having her own home! and the house is a beautiful Victorian! and the ghost housekeeper is actually really lovely and helpful most of the time! except in September, when everything in the house gets extra special awful haunted, and of course Katherine would be coming in September, but They Are Gonna Get Through It. Obviously there is no question of moving. This is Margaret's extremely haunted dream house and we are in a housing crisis. She just has to fake it for a few weeks of nice visit until Katherine realizes that everything is fine and leaves again!

Alas for Margaret, Katherine does not agree that everything is fine. In fact, Katherine has never agreed with her mother that everything was fine, since long before Margaret bought the house; the starting premise is very funny and the book itself is also very funny but it is also using its premise to examine some serious topics and is also often very effectively creepy about it. (rachelmanija has a good list of content warnings over on her post.)

Horror is not my genre and this book is right on the edge of what's a good time for me, but it's having so much fun with its own haunted house tropes that for the most part I was having fun along with it. It's not a subtle book, and sometimes I wouldn't have minded a bit of a lighter touch, but it's doing exactly what it wants to do.