Horrid

Horrid by Katrina Leno
Genre: horror
I read it as a(n): hardback
Length: 326 pp
Her Grace’s rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Seventeen-year-old Jane North-Robinson and her mother Ruth have to move to Ruth’s hometown in Maine after the death of Jane’s father. Jane didn’t even know there was a house in Maine for them to live in, but considering how her dad managed to lose all their money before he died, she is grateful enough that her mother inherited it, even though it meant leaving her own hometown of LA. When they arrive, though, the house is in shambles. Fixing it up takes a little time but it’s coming along and Jane is prepared to do hard work to help. What Jane isn’t prepared for is the fact that the house seems to be haunted.

This was an unfortunate case where the title describes the novel as a whole.

This book was a pretty typical haunted house type of story – old, crumbling house, ghosties, dark New England atmosphere, and a whole town who knows the deep, dark family secret that Jane’s mother won’t tell her. It was minimally creepy in parts but overall it was fairly predictable. The idea of the novel was interesting but the execution of it wasn’t the greatest. I think my biggest issue is that allllll of the characters were catastrophically underdeveloped and they all slid right into your typical YA cliches. 

I’m not sorry I read it or anything. I just had higher expectations and found it to be quite dull. That was particularly disappointing because I had high hopes based on that absolutely gorgeous cover! Yes, I judge books by their covers. This one was amazing and so I thought the story should have corresponded to that.  Alas.