Atmospheric, beautiful and creepy and I just cannot wait for the second book. Sometimes YA horror disappoints, but this was very well done. I will be sure to read this author again. Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for sending me an e-arc 4.5 stars! Get this on you fall reading list!

Excuse me but I need book two immediately to recover from the roller coaster Holly Horror just put me through. That ending!

I have to be honest I went into this book not expecting much. But I was completely blown away. Holly Horror is addictive and fast paced. I flew through the second half of this book. I absolutely loved the legends in this story. It was filled with so many good spooky scenes. I fell in love with the characters as well.

It did drag for me a little bit in the beginning but after about 30% in I was completely hooked. I seriously can’t wait for book two to come out.

Overall I had such a fun time reading Holly Horror. It gave me such nostalgic vibes. I felt like I was back in middle school falling in love with horror all over again. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves YA horror.
4.5/5 Stars

I did not realize when I requested this that the target age range was well below my years of life. Therefor, I do not think I am the right audience for this book. I will say that I do think it would appeal to my daughter and I love the cover and page designs very much. I have it five stars for as the aesthetics and after my kid reads it will happily see what she thinks and post a review to goodreads on behalf of her.

Evie, her mom, and her brother move into their family home after the divorce of Eveie’s parents. They move from Newyork to a small town called Ravenglass. Unfortunately, the house they are moving into is the talk of the town. Hobbie House is what the visitors call the house, but to the local residents, it is known as the Horror house. Evie begins to see and hear strange things in the house.

Holly Horror was an easy and fun read. Was it groundbreaking? No. However, I still liked the small-town feel of it. While reading Holly Horror, I found it more creepy than scary. Which was ok for me, but if you are looking for Holly Horror to be a scary read. This is not it. The romance in this book was done well. It was sweet. The romance was not rushed or forced when the characters revealed how they felt about each other. Some may call it insta lovey, but I would argue that most teenage high school romances are just that in real life. I want to mention that some of the characters seem like placeholders. The tone of the book also changes. I kept trying to put my finger on what was lacking in the story, but I could not figure out what was off.

The ending was ok. I wonder if all the questions will be answered in the second book. If so, I am interested because so many questions were left unanswered. I rate this book 3 stars, and I will be reading the next book.

Thanks, NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group for providing this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Holly Hobbie went missing 40 years ago. Evie Archer moves into her old house and gets swept up in the mystery, only to find herself going down the same rabbit hole Holly herself went down...

I love when a middle grade book manages to create a spooky environment without all the extras allowed in adult horror. It allows you to become more invested in the story and the characters themselves. The popups with the Patchwork Girl were perfect, and the description of Holly was creepy without being over the top. I loved the allusions to Alice in Wonderland with Schroedinger and the rabbit hole idea, along with the imagery included in the Wonderland scene. Truly a wonderfully weaved tale of horror through the eyes of a teenager.

I did dock it a point though because I felt that Stan seemed too old at times for being ten. For his shenanigans I would have guessed he was at least 13, more like 15, but that would be too close in age to Evie.

This book is the first book I have read by Michelle Jabès Corpora, and it will not be the last. I’m not going to lie I went into this book thinking it was going to be another "paranormal" book that was easily disproven or something that would miss the mark completely. I have been let down by a couple of YA horror stories recently and this book was my last hope in a way and it did not disappoint.

This isn’t a criticism of the horror stories I have read this year, but a lot of horrors rely on the shock factor. This book doesn’t the spookiness of this book starts off slow and starts to smoother you without you realising till it’s too late. This book reminded me of the unease that I felt reding The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich and I loved it. The Dead House has been added to my Halloween rereads for this year thanks to Holly Horror.

When a mother and her two children have nowhere else to go, they move in to a two-hundred-year-old house with a creepy past. What’s the worst that can happen? Oh, wait I know... As Evie settles into her new home, she discovers Holly’s old diary and becomes increasingly fascinated with the mystery surrounding Holly's life and death. You are just begging for trouble from the other side at this point.

Evie's an interesting character She was strong, resilient and is realistic. Poor Evie isn’t having the easiest time as her parents are going through a messy divorce, she is getting used to a new school and new town. However, the new house starts to whisper to Evie’s mind, too quiet for others to hear and starts seeing creepy visions of shadow like figures that no one else sees. I love how Michelle incorporated mental health into her book in a respectful way. Evie realises that the only way to avoid a fate like Holly's is to solve the mystery of Hobbie House.

This book is perfect for the spooky season

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I honestly was drawn to this story for the cover. It is beautiful and creepy. This was a quiet little horror novel with a good cliffhanger ending. I was surprised to see it had a sequel and then was invested for the ending.

This read to me like a middle grade book. The layout and language just didn’t say YA to me. I think this would have been a perfect horror to market to kids. There’s very little violence and supernatural elements to keep it interesting.

I got a lot of Coraline vibes in this book and that’s probably what made me enjoy it more. Evie was a very sympathetic heroine and I really liked the romance that built up between her and Desmond, even though it felt sort of random. I’ll be looking forward to the next book in the series for sure!

It was a good read ! Very good read !
Perfect for people who like ghosts stories or halloween ambience in general !

this book was good! i felt it was on the more juvenile side of ya, but i still had an enjoyable time with this book.

i thought the characters were interesting, and it definitely got spooky at times.
the reason for 3 stars is because i felt like some of the plot fell flat at times. ideas weren’t fully hashed out, and we were left with holes.

i certainly would give it a chance tho!

The cover of this book is extremely unique and really drew me into wanting to read this book. The book starts out without much originality. The parents are divorcing and the children end up with the mother in some location that is creepy and there is a mystery to solve. I very much felt that I was reading a children or middle school book when I started experiencing the dialogue. the interactions are very juvenile throughout and the mother just seemed to always be gone and to never be involved in the events in the home. The characters were very flat and I could not really understand what drew Evie to be interested in her love interest. It seemed more forced than anything due to events from Holly in the past as opposed to anything that has developed. I did end up liking the way the book wrapped up and liked the way it was left open to be a series. I really just wish there would have been more originality. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

Atmospheric, spooky, and intense- Holly Horror does not disappoint!

This book snuck up on me and I had not heard of this author or book until Penguin Teen reached out with their list of ARCs. I am thankful I was able to snag a copy, because this was bingable and fun!

This is a wonderful YA paranormal horror for the upcoming spooky season; and I highly recommend it if you enjoy haunted house horror!

Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for the e-arc! I look forward to book two!

Holly Horror by Michelle Jabès Corpora wasn’t originally one of the 2023 books I was anticipating. However, as soon as I read the synopsis, I knew right away it was something I wanted to read. After all, it appeared to have everything I look for in a paranormal horror novel: spooky house, secrets, more secrets, and an eerie history that was far more present than what the characters would’ve liked to admit. My instincts were spot on, because I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

Holly Horror has a somewhat typical beginning with a family moving to a new house under less than ideal circumstances. But “Hobbie House”—nicknamed “Horror House—came with a reputation, and it was one that was entirely earned. Part of my enjoyment of the book was the backstory Corpora wove into the present timeline. There was so much lore to think about as I was reading, and it arrived in well-timed allusions. I often questioned how the nuggets of information about the mystery would come into play later in the story, and it was one of the aspects about Holly Horror that helped gradually build the intensity. On the other side, while I didn’t find anything particularly too scary about the story, the spooky elements invoked a sense of unease, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Evie Archer was going through it in Holly Horror, but, in a general sense, I liked how Corpora built her character. Evie’s backstory really came back to haunt her, in a literal sense—no pun intended. The actions of her mother, the distance between her and her father, and her experiences with not being believed led to more harm than good. It really set her up as a character that would keep secrets, who wouldn’t say when something was wrong, or mention when she was afraid or hurt. She felt that she couldn’t be herself—and it made her susceptible—which was something reflected in the story by the way she handled stressful situations and her personal relationships. So “Hobbie House” wasn’t isolated—the town, Ravenglass, was within walking distance—but the feeling of isolation was something that permeated a large part of the story.

Holly Horror was intense, and that ending was too cruel of a cliffhanger. Luckily, there’s going to be another book in this series, and I’m looking forward to it!

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Penguin Teen) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

I think this book is entertaining, and I look forward to seeing where the series goes. It's an intriguing way to resurrect Holly Hobbie, and I think the book is great even for people who are unfamiliar with it. I looked up more information about the classic character along the way. Also, this book gave me Are You Afraid of the Dark vibes, with it's haunted house and creepy toys, which I love. This is one of those tales with a very "teen feels like parents will never understand her" storyline, but it's engrossing because of the dynamics of the mom-daughter relationship, which is fraught with tension, care, and misunderstandings. Throw in a great character in an Aunt Martha, and you've got a lot of good female power happening. I really like that the book is so focused on Evie and her emotional experiences. I also just really want a patchwork dress or coat or something, so can we bring that style back? The brother's name is a distraction - Stan- I know people are named Stan, but should they be? Not really a 10 year old kid feeling name, but perhaps that's because I've been watching Golden Girls lately, so remove your personal associations with the name Stan if you need to.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for sending me an early copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

I was not expecting to love this book the way I did, but I consumed it in under 24 hours, and I have zero regrets. Other than maybe how scared it made me at night. I really thought that this was going to be another "paranormal" book that was easily explained away by reality, but this book offered so much more than that, and it gave exactly what it was supposed to give!

I absolutely loved Evie and found her to be super relatable, especially with respect to her mental health and having issues with not being believed all the time. She was strong and resilient, but she was also very real. She was the girl next door or the girl I grew up with who this could have easily happened to, and that made the story that much harder to escape from.

The spookiness of this book really started off slow and snuck up on me. There were points where I had to take a breather and remember that I was not about to be killed by ghosts. (I hope). This book was so good at immersing you and taking you on this journey with Evie, and I loved every second of it. I can't wait to see where this story goes from here!

All my spooky girls are going to want to get their hands on this book before fall comes!!

I thought Holly Horror was atmospheric and suitably creepy.
When Evie, her mother, and her younger brother move to Hobbie House they were hoping for a new start. Even with the disappearance of her mother's cousin Holly years before. As soon as they arrive in the house you can feel that the house has a creepy vibe, and the longer Evie is in the house the more she seems to be the target of a sinister force. Right in the beginning there is a scene in the attic that had the hairs on my neck standing straight up. There are a lot of other great creepy scenes, and I loved how Evie tried to solve the mystery of what happened to Holly and what is currently happening to her.

The ending definitely gave some good setup for the next one, which I'm really excited to read.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

While this book had some chilling scenes, I found it a bit boring and predictable. It would make a good tv series though!

The vintage horror vibes that this book brings! I highly enjoyed this book. I would recommend this to teens who enjoy horror/mystery/vintage horror movies or vintage things in general.

My rating was flip flopping between a 3 and 4 throughout this book, but overall it's more of a 3. The premise and cover definitely drew me in. The story started off strong and I was really into it but then the pace slowed down. The writing was mostly OK but seemed inconsistent at times. I liked the characters a lot and they were developed well. It's an easy and unique story that was mildly scary - I absolutely expected and wanted more creep factor. We could have used more information on patchwork girl, and more of an explanation as to why things happened like they did. The ending was unexpected! I loved the artwork of the girl in the bonnet at the start of every chapter. I'm glad I read this Holly Horror but it wasn't memorable.

Thank you to NetGalley for offering this title in their catalogue. The opinions expressed above are entirely my own.

After her parents' divorce, Evie and her mother relocate to a small town and move into Hobbie House, or, as the locals call it, Horror House. Evie tries to focus on her family's fresh start, but can't ignore the strange occurences she's experiencing, or what she comes to learn about the house's history.

This was very fun haunted house story. It was an easy, quick read, and touches on some meaningful topics, such as mental health, and processing big life changes while growing up, but doesn't go deep into them. The horror elements were very well done, and I found them to be delighfully scary. I also like that the main character had a unique hobby in sewing, and that it was worked into the plot really well, it gave the book some extra flair for me.

Thank you Penguin Teen for the ARC!

This book was captivating from the beginning, and the cliffhanger at the end of the story was something that I was anticipating because I kept waiting for an answer to that one question I would definitely recommend this book to others and I cannot wait to see what happens next