*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review*

A great thriller - I would recommend it!

Thank you to CLASH Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I’m glad I finally got around to reading Anybody Home? by Michael J. Seidlinger. It’s been on my TBR for over a year and we’re well-past the publication date, but I still wanted to leave a review here. At first the narrative style and slow build were difficult for me to get into, but, about halfway through, I was uneasily engaged with the plot and unnamed characters. That plot is deceptively simple, especially if you’ve seen enough home invasion horror films: a group plans and executes violent acts on a family. What adds depth to this well-done, yet realistic plot is the narrative address from an ‘I’ narrator to a ‘you’ invader, acknowledging the public’s voyeuristic interest in this kind of violence, and lots of reference and meta-commentary on the subgenre. The violence is written so straight forward and almost dry that it becomes more terrifying to engage with. That lack of fear from the POV in those moments somehow heightens readers'. It’s a difficult perspective to empathize or work with, but the book knows that. It wants you to be an audience. I recommend this book to those who already enjoy the subgenre, those looking for experimental perspectives, and anyone who wants to never feel safe at home again.

A longer, more critical review is posted on my blog.

If you’re like me and the movie The Strangers actually got under your skin and terrified you, but you still enjoyed it, then this one is for you.

Love the home invasion genre and I've been a fan of Seidlinger since he was publishing with Lazy Fascist back in the day. This book was unsettling and scary and more or less unpleasant. I loved it.

This weekend I am reading Anybody Home? By Michael J. Seidlinger, published by Cclash books. The first three chapters are like barbed hooks, I can hardly wait to get back into it buuuuut Back-to-School shopping has to take priority. Yo-yo is the Halyard by YoyoWorkshop, also, I love Kombucha.

**Update: Anybody Home is a 5⭐ read. Easily. The narrative it is pitching as a vicious crew cases, then implements a home invasion spectacle, is rad and meta as all hell. Great read. I hereby pledge my fandom to Michael J. Seidlinger. I am all the way in for anything you release. And on a side note, anything Clash books publishes is GOLD.

This was not only a very creative novel that just felt different, it was a whole experience. Generally I don't read 2nd person POV because it has never been my thing. Something about it is just off-putting to me. But in this book? It was perfect. It felt like you were there with the intruders, as if they were feeding you lines and actions through an earpiece. Think the Strangers, but you're in there with them. This was one of the most creative horror novels I've read to date for that reason. In fact, if you're a fan of the strangers or any of those unknown intruder type movies, then definitely read this. My primary issue that I had with this book was the fact that it could be extremely confusing to read. The characters are never explicitly named; rather, they're referred to as "Invader 1" and "Victim 1" etc., which makes the book hard to read. I know the purpose is to dehumanize the events happening and to emphasize how little the victims mean, but also the degree of separation between the actual group of invaders, but it is very confusing at times. Also the "narrator/instructor" was kind of pretentious and a bit annoying to read at times.

This is a hard book to review. Based on the author's own experience of home invasion, the book is raw and sickeningly real. It reminded me of Haneke's film, Funny Games, a movie where the viewer is involved in the action of the home invasion. It's a disturbing position to be in as a reader, but it asks important questions of media and entertainment and the lines that are often blended when it comes to reality television.

While an uncomfortable read that I find hard to recommend to anyone, I do think it asks important questions that people should ask themselves more often.

A great read by this author. I definitely recommend checking this one out!
Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

My review is based on the first almost half of the book. I stopped because the author made the decision to use a dead household pet as a plot device. Nope.

What: home-invasion horror
About: POV narration of a lead up and execution of a home invasion that hints of there being a cult behind the random acts of extreme violence
Features: dread, raw & graphic depictions of violence
Assets: so disturbing readers can't pull away
Obstacles: visceral descriptions of violence may be too much for some
Who it’s for: fans of neo-splatterpunks like Kristopher Triana, Aron Beauregard, Wesley Southard

The idea of this book is extremely unique and I think the author wrote a completely original and different take on a home invasion horror novel.
However, the writing style is just so hard to follow and it just doesn’t flow. It’s written in second person and no one has any names or faces.
The way this story is told is basically a how to for home invasion. That should make this story extremely scary. You’re being given knowledge that regular people just don’t have.
Instead of being utterly creepy and scary, it just becomes boring and tedious to read.
I feel like a shorter format (novella) might have been better for this story, it just seemed to drag when it shouldn’t have.
I love that the author tried something new and different, but it just didn’t work for me.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book.
This was a creep-fest, it definitely delivered on the horror front!
The unique point of view threw me first but once i got used to it and it moved from generalising to an acual case, it was just plain terrifying, simply for it's plausibility.
This is definitely a one of a kind book. May not be a masterpiece, but it's a must read.

Please take note that the following not-so-positive review puts it in the minority. Many reviewers very much enjoyed this novel. I encourage you to take a look at their comments.

Although described as a horror novel, I did not expect the content to be mostly graphic violence which is something that does not work for me. I incorrectly assumed the point of the home invasion subject matter was to spook and not to dismember.

The writing style, unfortunately, did not connect me to any of the characters. This may have been due to all the characters being nameless and referred to as numbers 1 through 4. Also, I had trouble staying immersed in the story - addressing the reader repetitively kept pulling me out of the narrative.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review but sadly, this book was not for me.

I loved the idea behind this book and it was very disturbing but the writing style just wasn’t for me. However, I do think it’ll be very well loved in the horror book community.

What an intense and unique read! I loved how different this was from other books in the genre. I think this is a fascinating piece that I hope gets more traction over time.

Wow. Just…wow. Allow me to gather my thoughts for a moment here.
Anybody Home? is not a fun read. It is cold. It is brutal. It makes you question the good in humanity, and it makes you question yourself for reading it.
These are also the reasons why I say it's a good book.
I'm someone who had a strong fear of home invasions as a young child. I won't deny that that - along with the fact that someone actually tried to break into my house around the time I started reading this - had an impact on my reading experience. However, the fear isn't why this book is good.
With every page, some part of me thought about putting it down, yet I was compelled forward. Seidlinger succeeded in that goal perfectly. He also hit me with the ending - something that perhaps should have been expected, yet stung just the same. I'd say more, but that would ruin it.
At times, I did wish for the narration to be a bit more clear. I found myself backtracking or rereading a few times in order to make sense of certain sections. This may be a positive trait for some readers though.
This book is certainly one that I'm going to be thinking about for a long time.

This book was written as a first person account of the person doing the invasions and killings. It is quite frightening that everything is done precisely and with no remorse.
If you are squeamish about people being killed methodically or animals (I had a hard time with that), this book is not for you.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars. This is one of those books that I was anticipating so hard. So excited about it. Thought the premise sounded terrifying and absolutely bonkers. Anybody Home? follows the second person POV of painting how to successfully create a break-in and the subsequent torture of a home invasion to pander to a mainstream audience. The concept of someone telling you how to direct a home invasion is terrifying and the how-to aspect is unsettling and disturbing, but this felt... empty. Lackluster and not fully fleshed out enough to go past anything other than horror. The commentary on entertainment and watching people be tortured and how that attracts viewers is relevant for our current time, but I can't help but hope that this book doesn't end the wrong hands. You know what I mean, the hands of those who will decide to act out the plot and carry out the story. Concept wise, it's a strong writing concept, but I never connected to anyone or anything enough to care past basic fear and being unable to look away, which is probably the point. I just wanted a lot more.

Oh my god lord this book was fucking traumatising... I woke up at 4am one morning, and I was midway throguh reading this book and HONESTLY I thought we were falling victim to a home invasion, I genuinely was terrified and started to go through all these different scenarios in my head (turns out it was just my dad making loads of noise getting ready for work but this book put me on EDGE).

Seriosuly though, the entire book has made me want to just move into a lil house in the wilderness where no one knows I'm there.

Anybody Home? takes us through a home invasion, except it has a twist... It's through the eyes of a director, a director who is instructing and advising the perpetrator on how to successfully undertake said home invasion.

I'd never read anything like it before, ever. Sure, I've watched a lot of horror films about home invasions, hell, some of them even scared me, but nothing, NOTHING, I've ever watched or read has been so excellently disturbing. It genuinely terrified me, I didn't sleep and when I did sleep I had nightmares, it got under my skin in the best possible way.

From the get go the books intention was to put you on edge and build this atmosphere of fear and nerves and paranoia, and it certainly succeded in doing so... Despite us never actually learning the invaders names or really getting anything other than basic information about the family it still built this intense feeling of unease, and I personally think the ambiguity around the characters lent itself well to the story.

One thing I particularly enjoyed (if that's the right word to use in this review!) was how the idea of the invaders doing these things just because they could or because they wanted to, it terrified me to my very core. It was the perfect way to keep us on edge whilst we were reading.

In the same breath, never truly knowing who the cults were that the narrator kept alluding to, and it being left open to interpretation was just the icing on the cake. Were they just horror lovers in need of a good scare? Were they people on the dark web, paying to watch? It just really added that layer of fear and unsease.

Book Review
Anybody Home?
Michael J. Seidlinger
reviewed by Lou Jacobs

readersremains.com | Goodreads

Who’s going to pull off the next great Home Invasion? Is it you?
A chilling and unsettling look into the mind of a serial home invader, with a blueprint provided for the reader. Told in the second person perspective, this story makes the reader complicit in these highly orchestrated invasions motivated by gratuitous entertainment. Fame appears to be a motivating factor: to see one’s name written in the hallowed annals of FBI records. The director—or rather main Invader #1—provides a detailed account of the necessary elements to pull off an outstanding “performance” that will not only baffle the authorities, but enthrall “the cults” watching the events on the silver screen. You see, the most important part is to capture the grisly, ongoing events with “the camera.” It is as important to capture the stalking and planning, as well as the kills.
Perhaps a commentary on our society’s voyeuristic pleasure in capturing the ongoing tragedies of life through the news, true crime documentaries, and even horror films. Try to deny the morbid fascination of the havoc created on a “scary” horror flick, in a similar fashion tension is successfully ratcheted up as the events unravel in progressively hideous and gruesome fashion, upon an unexpecting suburban family of four.
It is quite evident that the sanctity of the home is an illusion. The Invaders can spend weeks and even months in planning. Home security is only an inconvenient obstacle, but easily overcome. The victims are studied, their personalities, routines and proclivities are studied, which will form the basis of the later torture. This apparently is an important part of the entertainment, for both invader and viewer (or reader). The greater the level of fear instilled, the more successful will be the performance. Improvisation and creativity of the invaders in the face of unexpected events heighten the enjoyment of the voyeurs and invaders. Never forget the importance of entertainment. The more unsettling and gruesome, the better.
Seidlinger weaves a masterful and unsettling account of home invasion for sport, that places it in a deserved pedestal of nasty horror tropes, rivaling serial killer totems. It reaches gestalt status, his performances become more than the sum of its individual parts. Rather than gore, unbridled tension creates the distaste and chilling nature of these heinous crimes. No longer can we believe this could never happen to us. Is waiting for violence to occur a guilty pleasure? The capture of these invasions on film rivals the revulsion felt with the “snuff films” of yore.
Thanks to NetGalley and Clash Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof of this immersive novel in exchange for an honest review.