My first book from this author and it was an interesting experience.
Creepy, haunting, and entertaining.
Rivers Solomon takes the haunted-house trope and makes it feel fresh, unique, and a bit unsettling.
A book that isn’t just about ghosts, it’s about family, and the things we can’t outrun.

I was so excited for this book, and honestly, I really didn't like this book. I should have DNF'd it. The premise was so cool - I will always read a haunted house story. But I felt like the plot didn’t fit well together and that it dragged too much. There were too many characters to try and follow through past and present plot lines. I really wanted to like this one but it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I appreciate what Solomon did here, but I was hoping for more 'haunted house' elements.

This is a really heavy book and readers should definitely be aware of triggers beforehand. It's the sort of book that really changes your mood for at least a week or two.

4 stars on goodreads.

This was a fun, queer horror book that I greatly enjoyed. Made me think of that movie from my childhood called smart house.

I have recently recommended this book in a pride post on Instagram.

3.75

Rivers Solomon continues to draw me in with fascinating premises and this is no different. Set in a white Texas suburb, we follow Ezri as they and their siblings are brought back to the house they grew up in because of the suspicious death of their parents. This is a slow moving haunted house story, but I found it incredibly engaging. I love the way Solomon incorporates social commentary and queerness and disability into their work.

I do think that the ending kind of let me down, which is why I couldn’t give this a full 4 star or higher. I understand why it went the way it did and it makes sense but in the moment I was disappointed that that was the resolution.

Model Home was a super interesting read. I loved the character study and the writing felt propulsive. I'd read more from the author.

The problems with this book are entirely my fault. I thought the themes and conversations surrounding racism, homophobia, trauma, abuse, and mental health were well executed. The writing is fantastic and the narration by Gabby Beans was superb and added to the story. If you choose to read this, pick up the audio. The issue for me is that stream-of-consciousness books or literary horror rarely work for me. I wanted more actual house haunting.

Thank you to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux | MCD, and Macmillan Audio for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rivers Solomon’s Model Home is a gripping, genre-defying horror novel that explores the haunting legacies of family trauma, racial isolation, and gender identity. Centered on Ezri Maxwell, a nonbinary, neurodivergent adult returning to their childhood home in a predominantly white Dallas suburb, the story blends psychological horror with emotional depth, unraveling secrets buried in both the house and the heart. With lyrical prose and a nonlinear structure that mirrors the fragmentation of memory and trauma, Solomon crafts a chilling yet tender narrative that challenges the boundaries of horror while offering a poignant meditation on survival and selfhood.

This book is way too dark for me. I love horror and a haunted house but I need a little humor mixed in. This was too grisly, and too full of trauma.

Ezri and their two sisters grew up in a haunted house, a cursed house, a house that believed they didn't belong there and was sure to make that fact known. Now, a couple decades later, the siblings must reunite in the wake of their parents' suspicious deaths that the house surely caused. Meanwhile, tensions brew between siblings, Ezri struggles with a lot of mental health issues, their young daughter deals with her own set of issues. This novel is rife with generational trauma, the effects of racism, so many things that honestly, this book is really hard to summarize but I can say it's super horrifying and you should definitely read it.
The mix of flashbacks, Elijah's perspective, and Ezri's own semi-unreliable narration makes this occasionally hard to follow, but in a good way. A way that leaves you unsettled as the siblings are. The horror is palpable. The number of times I felt just terror was nearly too many, but it was so satisfying. This book was also heartbreaking. The relationship between siblings and parents and just the mess? A little too relatable, very well-written. Solomon's writing is really incredible, vivid and fantastic and anyways I loved it.

Rivers Solomon’s Model Home is a haunting, thought-provoking, and daring exploration of the legacy of racism, trauma, and family dynamics. A twist on the traditional haunted-house novel, Solomon turns the genre on its head, blending elements of horror with sharp social commentary.

The story follows the Maxwell siblings—Ezri, Eve, and Emanuelle—who grew up as the only Black family in a lily-white gated neighborhood outside Dallas. Their childhood home was a place of unsettling, unexplainable events, with terror and trauma lurking behind its walls. As adults, they each escaped, but the death of their parents brings them back to confront the horrors they left behind.

Through Solomon’s evocative writing, the house itself becomes a symbol of the ghosts of segregation and the weight of a painful history. The novel doesn’t shy away from exploring the trauma passed down through generations, the insidious nature of racial injustice, and the haunting effects of trying to assimilate into a system that has always marginalized you.

Model Home is an unflinching and raw narrative, driven by its deeply compelling characters, who struggle to navigate their grief, identity, and the legacies of their past. It’s a chilling and emotional journey, as the Maxwells face not just their family’s dark secrets, but also the supernatural forces tied to their history.

Solomon's narrative is daring, raw, and unapologetically bold, offering a fresh and unsettling look at what it means to fight for your place in a world that has never fully accepted you. It’s a powerful and unforgettable read that blends horror with hard-hitting social critique, making it a unique and compelling addition to the genre.

This book was incredibly creepy and had a bleak tone and setting from beginning to end. I was interested in the story the whole time, but I felt like I wasn't given the opportunity to really know and care about the siblings. I enjoyed the writing style and setting of the book (but I did expect more of a haunted house vibe to the story), but at times I struggled to really feel grounded in the story. I think this book can be a hit or miss for people and is definitely worth checking out.

‘Mother is God, and we are here.’

This novel unfolds in such a dreadfully lyrical way that has you questioning everything you’re reading all the way through. The story revolves around the Maxwell siblings, primarily Ezri, as they are forced to confront the harsh realities of their childhood & home. Some of these areas included abuse, both physically and emotionally, mental health trauma, rape, and racism. While incredibly bleak, I am a sucker for dysfunctional families drama and anything that has me questioning which character is worse. Creeping up on the ending and that final twist had my jaw on the floor. I can confidently say, that that was one of the more disturbing twists I’ve read in a while.
This was one of my more anticipated reads of this fall and it did not disappoint. Thank you very much to MCD x FSG publishing for my gifted copy!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Model Home was my favorite book of 2024. Beautiful writing, characters so well developed I wanted to hug them. Will read more from them for sure.

This was a beautifully written novel that drew me completely in. It is classified as a horror novel, specifically a haunted house trope, but it is not your typical one. Model Home tells the story of the Maxwell sisters returning to their childhood home after their parents tragically die. Their home is in a predominantly white, gated suburban area outside of Dallas. The main character, Ezri, remembers it as a house of horrors, enduring frightening and downright creepy episodes while growing up there. Ezri is also dealing with gender dysphoria and raising a teenager as a single parent. The true horror of this book is the cruelty that people inflict upon each other consistently and without reason. Rivers Solomon is a phenomenal writer and I will be reading more by them.

I'll start by saying the Sorrowland is one of my favorite books of all time, and I also really love The Deep (though I know that is not just Solomon's work). And because I'm a fan of horror, Model Home was one of my most anticipated books of the year.

I started the audiobook and had to pause about 20% in because I was desperate to annotate a physical copy of it. The writing is simply sublime. That pause ended up lasting a couple of months, because it took me a while to be in the headspace again to dive into a dark story about the things that haunt us.

Model Home is creepy, unsettling, devastating. It is also somewhat predictable and a bit heavy-handed. My mental health is grateful for that pause I took, but I am not sure if I would have enjoyed this more or less if I had just kept going the first time I picked it up, because I do think that the pause is part of what made it so predictable to me. And because I had a sense of where we might be going, some of the tension dissipated and part of me was simply eager to get to the end.

I can absolutely see why this book doesn't work for a lot of people, and I can also see why many have it as one of their favorites of the year. I seem to have had both of those sides warring within me, so I get it!

It's also hard to recommend this book without spoiling it, which is a bummer. Absolutely seek out content warnings for this one, and I'll go ahead and call out sexual assault of a minor as a big one.

I have sat with my thoughts on this book for a couple of weeks now, and I think time is making me appreciate this more than I did when I first finished. I was probably at a 3 or 3.5 when I finished, but between the writing, the general eeriness, and the way this book is still swirling around in my head, I am firmly at a 4 now. A re-read might bump that up or back down.

This was a heart-wrencher of a book. I found the characters to be engaging and the plot to be interesting enough to keep my attention all the way through. More than anything, I know this was a book worth reading because I'm still thinking about it months later.

What constitutes a haunting. You go into this book expecting one thing but getting a completely different one. Sometimes we are haunted by our choices or the choices of others.

I have only missed one of Rivers Solomon’s books so far, and that one’s on my tbr too. When the Maxwells moved into the gated community outside of Dallas, they were the only black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors were nice enough at first, but then disturbing things started happening in the house. The 3 children thought the house was haunted. Years later, they must return to the house after the death of their parents. They think it was the house that killed them, but they’ll have to face up to the trauma of their past and uncover the mysteries they blamed on ghosts.

Buckle up! This one’s intense. Like Solomon’s other books, it deals with generational trauma, has great characterization and relationships, and has plenty of mysteries to uncover.

Rivers Solomon's Model Home is a haunting exploration of family, identity, and the lingering shadows of the past. The novel follows Ezri Maxwell, a nonbinary individual who returns to their childhood home in a predominantly white Dallas suburb after the mysterious deaths of their parents. As Ezri and their siblings confront the eerie occurrences that plagued their upbringing, Solomon masterfully intertwines elements of horror with poignant social commentary on race and class. The narrative delves deep into the complexities of familial bonds and personal trauma, making Model Home a compelling read for those who appreciate thought-provoking and atmospheric storytelling.