Having read the reviews of the book before reading it, I had low expectations going in. Maybe that's why i'm not disappointed from the book and quite enjoyed it. That being said I didn't find the book scary or a thriller, I didn't like any of the reveals both on who the killer was and the past of the main character and I didn't like the escalation at the end of the story. However I really liked the main character and the romance and enjoyed the story on a general basis. 

3/5

This book was promising, and it reminded me a lot of Scream; however, unlike the Scream series, There's Someone Inside Your House ends up putting the romance storyline in the forefront rather than the mystery/horror/thriller parts of the story, to its detriment. The mystery doesn't seem entirely fleshed out, and by the time there's any real moment of fright, it's at the end of the novel. It's too little too late. It's pretty obvious Perkins is typically a romance writer, and maybe that's what she should stick to. I'm not sure who this book is intended for. Those who prefer romance might not enjoy the slasher elements of this story, and those who come for the slasher story will likely be bored by the schmaltzy romance. I have posted a full review of this novel on my blog, but the link is currently down as we are in the midst of switching servers and slowly moving over our blog entries. It will eventually be available at booksquadgoals.com

This is a perfect read for fans of the Scream movies and TV show. A killer is stalking the small town and targeting high school students and everyone is a suspect! Very suspenseful, at times gore-filled, this keeps the reader turning to the page to find out who is doing the killing and who, if any, will survive.

I loved Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins so when I found out she was writing a YA horror novel, I was a bit confused but also pretty intrigued. Being a squeamish scaredy cat who hides behind pillows whenever scary movies are on, I’m not usually one for horror, but I thought I’d give it a go since it was Stephanie Perkins and I’d liked her writing style before.

Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed with this book. It was just a bit all over the place, but I think my main issue was that I didn’t really connect to any of the characters. For me, characters are the most important part of a book, and I felt like we didn’t really know anything about them.

Makani was our protagonist, and while I think she had great potential, I feel like her character wasn’t really explored as much as it could have been. For example, Makani kept mentioning how her parents hated her or didn’t care about her, which could have been really interesting to delve into deeper. However, nothing more was really said about it. We never found out why Makani’s parents felt this why, we never really got an insight into how this treatment made Makani feel - I mean, why bother mentioning it if it’s never going to be explored? Similarly, this “terrible secret” Makani seemed to have again had no point - it didn’t really tie in with the story and then when we found out what the secret was, I was more underwhelmed than anything else.

Ollie, the love interest, was a bit boring to be honest. I didn’t get why Makani liked him. I understand this book was inspired by teen slasher movies, which aren’t known for their character development, but I just didn’t care for their relationship and was skipping past the romance scenes. Honestly, I’m all for romance usually, but I guess I was expecting less romance, and a bit more tension and suspense.

I did like how diverse this book was and it was quite funny at times, but overall, the characters were lacklustre, and it wasn’t really scary. The murders were somewhat gruesome, but because none of the characters (especially the side characters) were very fleshed out, there was no real tension when someone died. The killer was also pretty disappointing - I won’t reveal who it was, but in the end, I still couldn’t understand their motive.

Overall, I didn’t much enjoy this book. I’ll still read whatever Perkins writes next, but I’ll try to avoid having such high expectations.

This book was too romance based when I first tried it. I wanted more horror! I will give it another try though as I've heard some good reviews lately.

I would rate this book a 3.75 out of 4 stars

This was a really enjoyable YA slasher novel.

I really enjoyed the diversity with the bi-racial main character, the trans side character (I do understand there are some issued with the trans rep which the author is going to rectify in later publications) and the less than typical love interest.

The main complaint I see with other reviews of this book is the early reveal of who the killer is. I personally didn't mind this at all. I really enjoyed the all out killer rampage that followed with the killer being aware that people knew who they were.

I thought the book would have been served by having a little more characters introduced who actively could have served as suspects to have the reader really guessing as to who the assailant was.

I will say that part of the book I didn't really enjoy was the back story 'reveal' of the main character. It felt very anti-climatic after all the build up. Left me feeling like, really? That's it?

Overall a really enjoyable read.

Stephanie Perkins is (apparently) the Queen of young adult contemporary novels. I say apparently because I haven't read her contemporary work. So when she released the premise of her new novel: There's Someone Inside Your House, I was instantly intrigued. Perkins had left the world of gushy, cheesy, romantic, contemporary and delved into the world of thriller, murder and mystery. 

Makani Young thought she'd left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She's found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn't far behind.

Then, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasingly grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani is forced to confront her own dark secrets.

There's a very quick way to sum up this book: the first half was ok, the second half was much, much better.



The first half of this novel was very character driven. It was more contemporary than thriller and you can tell that Perkins is trying to find her footing within this new genre. The first half represented the contemporary world that Perkins was familiar with; it was pure romance and relationship building, trying to come to terms with you who are...





“It was sad that people only got along when everybody was unhappy.”

― Stephanie Perkins, There's Someone Inside Your House





One of the things that I actually really liked about this book was that Makani was a biracial main character. I cannot say whether the representation was perfect or not because I am not biracial. But it did not come across as problematic. There was also a side trans character who didn't have a tragic backstory. Again, I cannot say whether the representation was brilliant or not but it did not come across as problematic. I know that you could argue that - again - diverse characters are being sidelined and put as side characters, and I get your frustration about that, but let's just take the small wins where we can get them for now: positive representation.

I also really like the murders? No, I'm not a psychopath. Albeit, there wasn't much murder in the first half of the book, and if my memory serves me correctly, it's only the very first chapter that is a murdery, stabby bit in the first half of the novel. I thought that the murders were very well written and genuinely scared me.

So now we move on to the negative things...

The reveal of the killer and the killer's motive was a complete let-down. They just didn't have a brilliant reason to kill the people that they did. I mean... I know that it's never a good thing to kill someone, but in a work of fiction, the character has to have a good motive, and there wasn't that here, which was disappointing.

This book also lacked suspense because of the first half the book and this is due to a tone problem. I recognise that Perkins has been a contemporary writer for years and years, and I know that it's hard to delve into a new genre and not convey parts of your old writing. But the toning of this book was a huge problem. The whole of the first half was contemporary. There was no suspense being built at all and like I said before, the only murder that happened (if my memory serves me correctly) was at the beginning of the book. Then, you get into the second half of the novel and BAM! There are people dying all of the time and there is blood and gore on every page. (I did like the second half a lot more!)





“People live through such pain only once; pain comes again, but it finds a tougher surface.”

― Stephanie Perkins, There's Someone Inside Your House





One more thing and I will stop moaning. Throughout the whole of this novel, the reader knows that Makani is hiding something. She has this massive secret that she's scared to tell anyone because she thinks that they will judge her and disown her, that everyone will hate her. Please... that secret was ridiculous and not bad at all. I'm pretty sure I've done worse things that what Makani did, like... staying in bed til noon. That. Secret. Was. STUPID.

So, as you can probably tell, there are a couple of good things about this book and things that definitely let it down. The second half of the novel is the better half as it's fast-paced and actual murder happens. I wonder if Perkins will try her hand at thriller again? If she does, I'm intrigued...

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

I really wanted to like this book. The author had been a favourite of mine ...but I started reading this book several times and really just couldn't find my feet with it. Something about the way this one is written, or possibly the change in genre, didn't quite gel with me and I have had to abandon it. Hopefully it will connect with other readers!

Pitched as a YA Scream, and Stephanie Perkins’s debut into the Horror genre, There’s Someone Inside Your House is exactly as it’s described, but with a twist, with the culprit being revealed halfway through, which was a ballsy move and could’ve either ruined or made the book, and for me it met somewhere in the middle, it didn’t ruin the story or plot knowing who the killer was, because it did up the stakes and the intensity, but it didn’t make the story because I was waiting for…something else to be revealed as a twist too, and that didn’t happen.

The characters are flawed, they make mistakes and don’t exactly do as they’re told, and put themselves in danger, but they’re realistic, though the culprit’s reasoning for the murder spree felt a little thin, and again I was waiting for something else that didn’t come. I also felt the romance took over the first quarter of the book a little.

Overall, There’s Someone Inside Your House is a fun, intense YA slasher, that was quick to read because I couldn’t put it down, and if you like Scream, There’s Someone Inside Your House is for you.

DNF @ 20%
Meh, I can't really get into this one. Maybe it's because it's leaning more towards being very romance heavy rather than mystery-thriller heavy like I was hoping. And from other reviews I've read, it doesn't really get much better. Maybe I'll try again sometime soon but at the moment I'm not really feeling it.

This was a fun horror debut from an author best known for her comtemporary YA. This book read like a teen-focused slasher film and reminded me of I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream. There's a biracial black/Hawaiian female protagonist (our "final girl") and good sex representation in which teens have responsible sex and feel good about it afterwards. There was some really heavy-handed foreshadowing about the protagonists "mysterious past" that turned out to not be as big a deal as it was built up to be. It was a fun, fast-paced read that I enjoyed more than I expected to.

I knew going into this book from other people's reviews that the killer is revealed about midway through which worried me slightly but actually after reading the book, I still thought there was enough intrigue and suspense to keep it interesting.
I adore slasher films where teens are picked off one by one and this had the vibe of Scream, the killings are very graphic. As much as I enjoy Stephanie Perkins sweet contemporary books, I really hope she dips into the horror genre again.

Makani has moved to Nebraska after an incident in her home of Hawaii but her classmates are being killed off slowly, one by one. The town is in complete shock as it is a small town, but the police aren't used to having to deal with a crime like this and things only seem to go from bad to worse.

I was excited for this book because I've enjoyed previous Stephenie Perkins novels in the past, but I wasn't sure if I would like it because I'm not normally partial to horror/thrillers. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE IT'S JUST NOT SCARY. Look I didn't hate it, I finished it and thought it was ok. It was easy to read. BUT, and that's a big but, for a book that was supposed to be scary I never once felt scared reading it. It focussed far too much on the romance. The murders didn't feel very threatening at all. I think had they been written in a different way it might've changed thins because there's were creepy elements to it, but at times it felt so campy. It felt more like Scary Movie than an actual scary movie. And that would've been fine had it been advertised like that, but it wasn't.

Makani was OBSESSED with this incident that happened in her past. She constantly made reference to it and was worried that anyone would find out she'd done it. But then you find out what it is and it's just so ridiculous that it just angered me that there was all that build up. Same goes for the killer. When you find out who it is it just feels fake.

I didn't mind Makani, when she's not stressing out about her past she's ok and it's nice to have an MC in a horror story that isn't white, as she has a Hawaiian mother. There is also a trans secondary character which I felt was dealt with well, but I could be wrong on that. Olly, the love interest is a weird one. He starts off with a really odd vibe, he obtains Makani's number through illegal methods and I really felt a bit sketchy about him but as the novel goes on I found myself coming around to him. But because it was so romance heavy it did leave me feeling a bit sour about the whole thing.

I think because I'm not a huge horror reader this was ok for me, but if I got this specifically for the horror aspect I would be sorely disappointed and if you're a fan of horror don't bother.

Makani Young used to live with her parents at Hawaii, but after an incident they sent her to Nebraska to live with her grandmother.
Makani has made a small group of friends, but worries they will find out about her past.
Then students from Makani's school start being murdered in gruesome ways.
Who is the serial killer?
Who is the next victim?

Hmm. There's Someone Inside Your House was . . . underwhelming.
None of the characters really stood out for me. Makani was okay but I didn't feel like I connected with her.
The plot was average. There were lots of deaths - more than I expected. The killer was revealed halfway through which was unusual and I think this took away from the suspense for me.
Makani's secret wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.
I wasn't a big fan of the romance.
The writing style was easy to follow but I lost interest once or twice.

Overall this was an okay but disappointing read.

When it was announced that bestselling YA romance author Stephanie Perkins would be making a comeback with a horror novel, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Whilst slasher stories aren’t my usual bag, I had to give it a go!

There’s Someone Inside Your House is set in a small town called Osborne, where students at the local high school are being picked off one-by-one. A series of gruesome and gory murders take place and the reader is faced with three mysteries:

Who is the killer?
How are they selecting their victims?
And what is the secret that caused our protagonist, Makani Young, to move from sunny Hawaii to live with her grandma in Osborne?

Unfortunately, this book really wasn’t for me. Whilst Makani’s badass grandma was very fun to read and I enjoyed Chris’ complex relationship with Ollie, I didn’t feel attached to any of the teen characters. I never really got a true sense of how they felt to be in this situation and I didn’t care much for their safety, resulting in a real lack of tension. I also cared very little for the romance that plays out between Makani and the quiet and solitary Ollie. It was a strange contrast to the grisly murders and it really didn’t sit well with me. Has someone just been murdered? Yes. Is it appropriate to make out right now? NO.

What I did enjoy was the exploration of the media’s reactions to the events in Osborne and seeing the impact it had on the people involved and the wider community. It would have been great to see that explored further. Similarly, more emphasis on the way the killer played with the victims, entering their houses and moving objects to confuse them, would have made a real difference to the book. The concept of ‘there’s someone inside your house’ – the idea that a unknown person has been in your personal, private space where you should feel safe and comfortable – is one of the scariest of all. More focus on that, rather than on their gory deaths, would certainly have kept me turning the pages (and awake at night!)

Above all though, it was the unrealistic elements of this story that let it down for me. I couldn’t believe, for example, that the killer evaded the police for so long. The excuse that they are a small force only holds up for so long and it felt quite ridiculous after a certain point. Similarly, it was a shame to see the classic YA trope of disappearing adult authority figures towards the end of the book. Whilst the absences are explained, they still irked me. The chances of a group of teenagers being allowed to go anywhere alone with a killer still at large seem, to me, extremely slim. Finally, the very last sentence of the book was, for me, the most unrealistic of all. Although I can see the intention of it, it seemed completely opposed to how I would have expected the characters to feel at that point and I just couldn’t buy into it.

There’s a good idea underlying this book, but it wasn’t as well-executed as I would have hoped. It wasn’t a gripping page-turner and it didn’t have me looking over my shoulder in fear. It’s a real shame, but I hope Stephanie Perkins will be back with some classic romance soon!

I declined to review this one on my blog for the reasons mentioned above. I know this has been enjoyed by the vast majority and my lack of enjoyment came more from personal preference rather than any fault with the writing.

I received a copy from Netgalley.

I was so excited for this book. It was one of my most anticipated releases of this year. I had pre ordered months in advance. I did a happy dance when my e arc request was approved early. Only to find this is one of my biggest disappointments of the year.

I really just didn’t like it much at all. Didn’t particularly care about the characters, wasn’t really that invested in the plot and the big reveal for the why of the whole thing was dull and anticlimactic.

It tells the story of Hawaiian teen Makani who has moved in with her Grandmother in a small town in Ohio. She has made some new friends, has a potential new relationship. She’s dealing with difficult parents who are in the middle of a bitter divorce, and is clearly hiding something bad that happened in Hawaii, the main reason she’s moved in with her grandmother.

A girl from the drama club has been viciously murdered, the small town is in shock and everyone’s gossiping about what could have happened and why. Before long another teen is murdered, a boy from the football team. So it continues. Random kids are dropping like flies in increasingly gory and violent murders. But there’s seemingly no connection between the victims. The novel focuses on Makani and her friends and her new love interest trying to figure out what’s going on, suspicions abound.

I just didn’t care. About any of it. I was bored. Teen slasher movies are one of my favourite things. Maybe I’m just jaded from having seen so many slasher movies raging from good to bad to what the fuck was that? It’s hard to compare not to compare this novel to a movie. That’s the feeling it gives.

Unfortunately, this book just didn’t work for me. Which sucks because this is one of my favourite authors.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pan MacMillian for approving my request to view the title.

Expectation: unable to put book down, horror filled and scary, fast paced.

Reality: more romantic than expected, not particularly scary, very slow beginning.

There has been so much hype around this book. I have never read a book by Stephanie Perkins before this one and maybe that will have had some effect on my judgement of There’s Someone Inside Your House.

Let me clear something up: this is not a bad book. The book itself is okay, the story is okay and the plot is okay. But that’s what this is for me, a book which is okay. One that I am glad to have read but probably not one I will be shouting about passionately or rereading.

I don’t read a lot of horror books but when I do I want them to terrify me. I am the same with horror movies. I both hate and love them but if they don’t scare me then what is the point? There were maybe one or two moments in There’s Someone Inside Your House where I felt a little bit of fear creeping in, but I’m not sure if that was more my own imagination. By the end of the first chapter the first victim has been murdered but then it takes a little while before anything else creepy really happens. I wanted the pace of this book to be action-packed and a race against time, but for about 75% of the book it doesn’t feel that way.

There was quite a lot of focus on the romance in this novel, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just wasn’t what I had expected. (I assume by now that you are gathering that my expectations were something quite different!) The romance itself was nice and I had no problem with that. I liked both Ollie and Makani, I just don’t feel a passionate love for them.

The biggest disappointment in this book for me was the reveal of Makani’s secret past life. Throughout the book we see references to something that Makani did back in Hawaii that caused her to need to move across the country and even change her name to protect her identity. When that big reveal arrived I found myself thinking ‘Is that it?’. Don’t get me wrong what happened was not nice but it was definitely built up to be a lot more than it was.

If you’re looking for a slasher horror that’s not too scary but with some teenage drama and romance then you’ll probably really enjoy this book. It’s an okay book, it just wasn’t what I was hoping for or expected.

I'd finished the book earlier in the day. I came home from school and was watching tv with my family when I heard faint but distint music coming from somewhere. Was it the neighbours? No, it was too loud. Was it coming from upstairs? How, when everyone was downstairs? Fear gripped me as I opened my phone's Spotify app and I realized the music was coming from my laptop in my bedroom, even though I, nor anybody else in my family, had even been upstairs.

Its been 4 days and I haven't been crudely murdered yet, but the promise of it still lies with every misplaced item in my bedroom, or strange noises I hear. I'm going to be the first to admit that I am in no way qualified to accurately review thriller/ horror for you if you are a hard-core horror fan; i don't watch horror movies, the only sort-of horror book I've ever read is Slasher Boys and Monster Girls, and my general anxiety levels are through the roof. There were a million reasons for me not to read this book but hey, it was on NetGalley, its by Stephanie Perkins and its nearly Halloween - a recipe for success.

Firstly, lets talk about the genre. Like i said, I am holding an imaginary, luminous sign right now saying "NOT QUALIFIED," but I would just like to clarify that this is *probably* not what you would consider a horror. It is strictly YA genre, with all the romance and friendships and tragic backstories that comes with it, and all of those elements are interweaved with the serial killer on the loose. There are no jump scares - if there can be jump scares in a novel? Perhaps its because of the tendencies of the serial killer, but you always know they are coming. Also, perhaps i have a grotesque sense of humour and this may not be what Perkins was going for, but there was a dark humour in many parts of the book, the killings so grotesque but at the same time, normal life continuing, which lightens it up a bit... I'm not sure how to explain that one, but if you read it I'm sure you'll get it.

I thought how Perkins structured the novel was really well done. We have a protagonist and are introduced to the world, the high school, the characters and the progressing mystery and tragedy of her schoolmates being killed - but also, every few chapters veers away from Makani and into the spotlight steps a new victim, for a few pages until he or she is killed. Quite a pattern. I definitely preferred the beginning of the novel to the latter-part of the novel, where perhaps it did get slightly more comical and less to be taken seriously.

Also the characters were just ASJDHKA amazing. I haven't read Anna & the French Kiss in a while but i do NOT remember the characters being so unique and complex, like they are in this book. We have Makani, Hawaiian (I can't comment on the rep bc im not Hawaiian but I hope this rep is good for Hawaiian girls seeing themselves represented) and has a v mysterious backstory, her best friends are wildly true to their character, the strange Ollie, and MAKANI'S BEAUTIFUL GRANDMOTHER WHAT A WOMAN.

They all come together trying to solve who the murderer is - not to be heroes, but as teenagers do, to satisfy their curiosity. If you want to satisfy your curiosity (and get a little spooked for those Halloween feels) you know what to do!

// Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this in exchange for an honest review //