Review: The House by Christina Lauren

Sinister and suspenseful with scenes that will surely make you shiver.
A perfectly creeptastic, haunted house read for October!

• Categories: Young Adult | Horror
• Related Posts: See more creeptastic recommendations  | See more YA recommendations
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Synopsis

Gavin tells Delilah he’s hers—completely—but whatever lives inside that house with him disagrees.

After seven years tucked away at an East coast boarding school, Delilah Blue returns to her small Kansas hometown to find that not much has changed. Her parents are still uptight and disinterested, her bedroom is exactly the way she left it, and the outcast Gavin Timothy still looks like he’s crawled out of one of her dark, twisted drawings.

Delilah is instantly smitten.

Gavin has always lived in the strange house: an odd building isolated in a stand of trees where the town gives in to mild wilderness. The house is an irresistible lure for Delilah, but the tall fence surrounding it exists for good reason, and Gavin urges Delilah to be careful. Whatever lives with him there isn’t human, and isn’t afraid of hurting her to keep her away.

My Review

Monster House meets Poltergeist in Christina Lauren’s suspenseful, new YA thriller. You’ll not want to read this one alone, in the dark, as the sounds of your own house creak and groan around you. Suspense escalates steadily in this tale of horror, as House becomes determined to crush the blossoming relationship of two young lovers.

When Delilah returns home from an East coast boarding school, the town of Morton is the same as it always was. Her family was the same as they had always been… indifferent at best. But when she again sees her old crush, Gavin Timothy, her heart surges to life. In his usual black tee, with his dark, shadowed eyes and an intangible mysterious edge, he was more irresistible than before.

“He was Delilah’s form of kryptonite.”

Gavin was largely a loner who lived in a patchwork type house that no one ever visited. Too many rumors, too many secrets, too much mystery swirled around him.

“Kids used to say the house was haunted, but it never looked that way to Delilah. It was stunning, thriving, like something out of an old story, or an ancient black-and-white movie. “

Delilah Blue was anything but typical herself. Her obsession with the macabre secretly defined her. She was unfailingly direct, curious and fearless. Gavin couldn’t help but be drawn to her.

“She was like a firecracker standing too close to a match: all potential energy, still wrapped up so neatly. He wanted to watch her explode. Hell, he was the watch. He wanted to make her explode.”

As their friendship slowly progresses into something more, Gavin realizes he must reveal the secrets of his life. He must tell her about House.

He could barely remember his mother, nor did he know what became of her, so House had nurtured him, fed him, raised him. House was a living, breathing thing that pulsed around him and provided everything he could ever need.

Then came Delilah.

“House had protected him through winter storms and lonely days. It had fed him and clothed him and been everything he’d always needed it to be. Until Delilah.”

Once Delilah enters Gavin’s life, House becomes possessive. Gavin belonged to it and no one else. And even as things violently escalate for Delilah, Gavin must see the truth behind House’s deadly intentions… even if it was the only family he’d ever known.

And when things finally become clear, after blood is shed, a plan is put into place, but would it be too late? Delilah and Gavin realize that House is much more powerful than they thought with more secrets than they imagined.

”The thing is, I’m yours. I don’t belong to anyone but you. I’m scared that you’ll never be mine the same way.”

Overall, the story was sinister and creepy, especially as tension intensifies with scenes that made me shiver. This is a great read to devour in October!

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