Wow. WOW. I posted on social media that I only meant to read the first few pages of Anybody Home? and ended up reading the whole thing over the course of an afternoon... this wasn't hyperbole. AH sucks the reader in and doesn't let go. The premise is queasy and voyeuristic - the reader is party to a conversation between two home invaders, one experienced, one a first-timer, as they plot and then carry out extended surveillance then torture of a typical American suburban family. Seidlinger's refusal to call any of the victims by name (they're Victim #1 and so on) offers the narrative distance needed for the reader to be swept up in this can't-look-away, creep-inducing detailed breakdown of a nightmare - and end up rooting for the invaders even as they sink further into depravity (there's a scene with a drill and an eye which proves particularly memorable, and as for the dazed, hazy grasp which the young daughter has on proceedings, including who's an ally and who isn't... brrr). A chilling commentary on torture-as-entertainment, playful and ghastly all at once. Fantastic.

Let's talk about entertainment.

Can violence be entertaining? Can horror? Can we make the suffering of others into a self-referential form of enjoyment for consumption? That is the question Anybody Home? raises, and purports to answer. Our narrator is a veteran of home invasions, a proud monster now placing others under their tutelage. Their goal?

To leave a mark. To be remembered as monsters. They are named as "Invader #", barely mattering to the narrator save for the mark this narrator intends to leave through them. They are not human. They are irrelevant in that respect. They are the manifestation of the narrator's will.

Far more dehumanizing are the victims. Victims 1, 2, 3 and 4. People with names, backgrounds, a family reduced to nothing more than a set piece for the entertainment of the monsters. As well as the masses. Never are we allowed to forget of the voyeuristic tone of his novel, where suffering is presented in death and torture.

And we are invited to wonderful how culpable we, the readers are. The novel is a difficult and harrowing one. I cannot say the execution is flawless, but i makes us think, demands a sense of ruthless participation from the audience. Can monsters function without an approving audience? What is the price of entertainment in horror?

The humanization of the victims is all the more terrifying, for we cannot simply enjoy it as they are tormented. The novel turns the reader into a participant in the crime and is all the more affecting for it. There is simply no way out in this, for the victims or the reader. We can stop reading at any time and pretend suburbia is safe, but...

It isn't. Safety is just a set of circumstances we agree upon and can be breached at any time. For such a simple setting, this is harrowing from start to finish. Sometimes, the set pieces can wear too long, draining a touch of suspense, but this is minor to the full execution.

Like Man Bites Dog, The Last Horror Movie and Funny Games, it's referential and smart and leaves no escape.

This is the first book in a long time that’s actually genuinely frightened me.

Anybody Home? Turns you, the reader, into the antagonist. A home intruder learning from a more experienced home intruder tricks of the trade to get away with gruesome crimes. It read like a mix of Funny Games and The Strangers - two of my favorites. The home invasion trope of horror has always terrified me and this one was no different. I couldn’t read this book at night and when I wasn’t reading, I was thinking about this excellent piece of work. I’m completely obsessed with the idea of turning the reader into the villain and I wish I could see that in more books!

I don’t even know how to review this book. It left me wanting to take a shower and Brillo some of the scenes from my mind. It was excellent and kept you wanting to know more, kept you flipping the pages faster and faster. At one point I felt like I had to just get to the end to let those involved be through with the ordeal. I will definitely get a copy of this book and revisit it. I got a copy on NetGalley for review. If you like your books disturbing and keep you up at night wondering if you locked the door and wanting to go and check but then are scared of looking out the windows then this is the book for you.

Needs some serious copyediting before publishing to print. It became very distracting and annoying, making it hard to really get into the book. Sounds like a great premise though.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. I will update Netgalley once I read & review a physical copy.

My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

This was an odd novel about a sequence of home invasions where the book is entirely seen from the point of view of the invaders. It is presented as if it is a narrative to a film (they are filming) or an A-Z on how to stalk, then enter a house and kill everybody inside. No names are ever used - everybody is presented as either an attacker or as a victim.

To be frank, I hated this book and found it to be a completely soulless and empty read. It went out of its way to shock (one guy gets his eye drilled out) but in actual fact it was very boring, because no names are used the reader cannot connect with any characters except the monotonous and detached narrator/killer.

It was not anywhere near as violent as it thought it was and if you are used to reading Extreme Horror, Splatterpunk then you may well find it all to be rather tame. It was also ill advised to compare this book to masters of the genre Jack Ketchum, as this author is an absolute beginner compared to Ketchum. Even comparisons to Samantha Kolesnik miss the mark as her 'True Crime' is a million miles better than this.

As I was reading this I found myself wondering what the point of it was? As there was no hidden depth or subtlety to any of it. I love violent books, but having two teenage brothers gouge each other's eyes out left me totally cold. This may well be one of those books which splits the critics, but it really is not one I would recommend.