I somewhat enjoyed this book at the beginning: there was some creepines (although I so wish that it wasn't supernatural in nature!), some building tention, some interest. But it didn't really develop into anything exciting and, coupled with an underwhelming ending, was ultimately disappointing.
Here are some of the things that I didn't like:
- The girl's voice is very inconsistent throughout the story. She is supposed to be eight, but she regularly sounds as if she is either 4 or 40 years old.
- The supernatural entity is very generic. Her description is vague, she appears from who knows where and who knows how, she haunts the kid for some reason (we know her goal is to take over the girl's body, but why this girl, why a kid, why does she need a body), her goal is to get the body and live but, again, why? Uncertainty here is not scary, it's just vague and lazy.
- There is a lot of pointles running around. I get that scared people faced with something supernatural would probably behave like this IRL, but reading how the family (who very quickly figure out, by the way, that the entity is not tied to their house and follows them) runs from place to place to, I gusess, just do something, is not really interesting.
- It could have been a "horror is secondary, let's explore the family dynamics in a stressful situation" type of book but the family dynamics aren't really interesting and not at all nuanced. We have a backboneless "saint" of a father and a horrible cheater of a mother, whose fault it all apparently is. That about sums it all up.
- The parents monologuing at the child was just weird. Even if they supposedly thought she was asleep when they did it.
The book is not badly written and quite well-paced, so you may enjoy it much more than I did if you're into paranormal thrillers featuring entities haunting kids.
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