ARC Review – 4.5⭐️ rounded up

Summary:
Alice and her 10-year-old daughter, Fern, are always on the run—though Fern doesn’t know why. Their latest stop is Pine Lake, Minnesota, where they move into an eerie old apartment building that once housed a sanatorium. Fern quickly becomes fascinated by the strange residents, giving them names like the Glass Girl, the Cursed Lady, the Old Soldier, and Mermaid Lady. When a woman claiming to be a former patient appears and asks for help finding her sister, Fern begins to piece together the history of the building—and the secrets her mother has been running from all along.

Review:
This book hits a rare sweet spot: it’s told mostly from a child’s point of view, but the themes and emotional weight are very adult. Think Pan’s Labyrinth or Coraline—Fern’s voice is observant, sharp, and sometimes heartbreaking. The atmosphere is moody and unsettling, and the line between the supernatural and psychological is beautifully blurred.

The mother/daughter relationship is the soul of the book. Alice and Fern feel real—messy, loving, flawed, and deeply intertwined. It’s one of the most believable portrayals of a parent and child I’ve read in a while.

While the story includes elements of mystery and ghostly suspense, it’s also a quiet meditation on trauma, depression, domestic abuse, and the way grief lives in the walls of a home. It’s haunting in every sense of the word, and it lingers long after the final page.

Bottom line: A deeply atmospheric, emotionally rich story with a standout child narrator and a layered look at inherited trauma. Not a horror novel in the traditional sense—but quietly devastating and haunting all the same. I’d recommend it to fans of literary fiction with gothic or speculative edges.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored Happy People Don't Live Here by Amber Sparks, even though it was maybe a bit twee and precious at times - but just the right amount of twee and precious for me. Alice and her young daughter Fern move into a creaky former sanatorium turned apartment building, where Fern discovers a dead body and starts investigating despite her paranoid mother's warnings. Alice has secrets of her own - there's a reason they're always moving and she's so paranoid - and she's also a miniaturist, which adds to the book's precious quality but also speaks to her need to keep things small and controllable. The story unfolds in this wonderfully weird world populated by the kind of people you'd expect to live in a converted sanatorium: there's someone who performs as a mermaid, a neighbor who communes with spirits, a professor specializing in obscure medieval topics. The writing itself is lovely, but there's something about the whole story that has this magical, kooky, almost childlike sense of charm to it - not undeveloped or simplistic, just delightfully earnest in a way that feels younger than typical adult fiction. As someone who's not usually drawn to YA, this hit exactly the right balance of whimsical gothic mystery with enough substance to satisfy, and I found myself not wanting to leave this strange little community Sparks created.

This read was weird very different ghost scare me so my imagination went everywhere lol but overall it was good

Thank you NetGalley and Liveright for the opportunity to read and review this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A quick mystery full of quirky characters and secrets. Although this is listed as an adult debut this read like a YA novel more suited for my middle schooler. It had great potential but this just wasn’t for me. 2.5 stars rounded up.

First off this should not be listed as an adult novel- it is 100% YA. I didn't enjoy the story because it bored me and the characters were lacking in every way. This just was not my kind of book.

Kittentits meets My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry. Quirky little read full of ghosts, odd neighbors, and a whole lot of heart. I saw the vision and could appreciate it, but felt this could have been improved with a bit more editing. Sparks' voice doesn't feel too clear and the narrative meanders without purpose at times.

though it’s listed as adult fiction, i feel like that’s pretty misleading. this is a fantastic YA horror novel, a perfect introduction to the genre for middle to upper grade teenagers. the book is thrilling and whimsical but not graphic in any way—even the violence is extremely tame or completely ignored. i don’t think publishing this as adult fiction is a good idea, i think publishing it as YA and tweaking some of the language will yield better results, both finance wise and review wise. as a 25 year old, i felt like i would’ve loved this book when i was 14, but not so much now. it was cute but not for me at my age.