Home Before Dark
Ratings306
Average rating3.9
IGNORE HOW LONG IT TOOK TO READ I HAD STUFF GOING ON! but wow this is one of my new all time favorites and so unexpecting too i loved it from about pg50- til the end to me it got better and better it was a bit slow in the beginning but i am BLOWN AWAY and i just love this one so much
I have read all of Riley Sager's works now and I can say that this is definitely one of my favourites.
I loved the way the story fluctuated between current events and chapters from Maggie's father's book. The pacing of it was so so well down and It made it feel more eery and real for me.
I know the inspiration behind this was Amityville Horror but this book also gave me such The Haunting of Hill House vibes and I loved it so much. This really kept me on my toes and I was so engaged from start to finish.
Great read! I had my suspicions about how it would end, and I was right about pieces but I didn't guess it all. The whole ending was well done.
Fantastic!!
Wonderful story with twists I didn't see coming! My heart was pounding at the end! Fantastic read! Well done, Riley Sager!
This was a fun page-turner that you can't think too much about in the end, because then the plot stops making sense. I appreciate the undermining of normal haunted house tropes, and liked the alternating chapters of Maggie's POV and applicable chapters of her dad's book. The writing was a little stilted at times (though that definitely works for chapters from the dad's book, as it is repeatedly said that it's supposed to be kind of shoddily written) but it was a perfect spooky summer read. 3.5 snakes out of 5.
This book is told in two different perpectives, Maggie's and her father's. It is about a haunted house that she lived in when she was younger but she has now need to revisit because she inherited it.
I've had this book for so long, I am a fan of Riley Sager and I can say I enjoyed this one too. It's nothing phenomenal but I did get scared while reading this, which I think was the point of the story.
“You are sixteen, going on seventeen” now seems so creepy to me. I don't think I'll ever hear that song the same way again.
Throughout the book, I was always kept guessing about what is really happening, is it really something supernatural, a product of imagination or is there really a murderer. You have to read to find out.
I needed a book outside of my preferred genre for a readathon, so I decided to go with this one.
I was pleasantly surprised. I actually enjoyed it. It's creepy, and had me guessing until the end.
3.5
this book was fine. i enjoyed the first half way more bc of the atmosphere of it. even tho i didnt predict any plot twist, it still wasnt that shocking to me or amazing but at least enjoyable
Wow, just wow. I have never in my entire reading life had a book keep me from putting it down. This book has everything a 5 star book should be. I thought I knew the direction the story was going to go, I get hit with a plot twist and just as I get my bearings from my mind being whiplash in such a good way I might as well add, my mind gets blown by another plot twist. This book left a permanent mark.
What a fun mystery/thriller to read in October! It has just the right amount of spookiness mixed with mystery. The book tells the story of one family's experience at Baneberry Hall, a supposedly haunted house. The reader is left to wonder if the house really is haunted or if there is a rational explanation for the things that occur there.
Maggie Holt has spent her entire life since the age of five trying to find out from her parents if the story her father wrote about their time at Baneberry Hall is true. She does not believe her father's tale of ghosts, but she also cannot remember those weeks. When her father dies and leaves her the house, she returns to it hoping to determine the truth of what happened there. As strange things begin to occur in the house, Maggie (and the reader) begins to wonder if maybe her father's assertions that the house is haunted might be true.
The plot of this haunted house thriller is gripping and entertaining. The pace is perfect and the atmosphere is just the right amount of creepy. Chandeliers that turn on by themselves, bells that seem to ring on their own, and record players that play on their own. All these strange occurrences lead the reader to feel as if the supernatural is at work in the house. The way the story alternates chapters from the present with chapters taken from the father's book creates suspense and reveals just the right amount of details at each point in the story.
Maggie is a somewhat unreliable protagonist because of her memory loss surrounding that time in her childhood spent in the house. She remembers some details, but even she does not trust her memories. The characters she encounters in the town are suspicious and untrustworthy. It all adds up to to create a feeling of unease, which is exactly what a reader wants in a thriller like this.
This book was the perfect read for me for the Halloween season. It provides all the spooky feels and delivers a satisfying ending. I would recommend it to any thriller lover.
When I am in the mood for a fast-pasted thriller, I find myself coming back to Riley Sager again and again. I have read so far, I have read Final Girls, Lock Every Door, The Last Time I Lied, and am currently reading Survive the Night. So, when people recommended his book Home Before Dark and noted that it was most likely his best book yet, I instantly had to get it.
It follows Maggie Holt, who learned upon her father's death, she has inherited the infamous Baneberry Hall, a Victorian Estate that has a dark past. During her childhood, her family moves into this estate just to flee in the cover of darkness under the guise that it is haunted, a story that later her father utilizes to write a best-selling book, the House of Horrors. This book is the only linkage that brings up the memories of this house for Maggie and it outlines the murder-suicide and deaths that haunt the halls. From snakes coming from the walls to a chandelier that magically turns on by itself, everyone knows that Baneberry is a house that remembers...
Flipping back and forth between Maggie's current experience of fixing up the old house and her father's book, it uncovers layer after layer, what happened the night that her family fled, is the house truly haunted and cursed by the sinister past residence of the home, and who exactly where Maggie's “imaginary friends”, Mr. Shadow, Mrs. Pennyeyes, and the girl with no name, when she was little.
Overall, this book was enjoyable for what it was: a pop thriller book that you can easily read in a day. One thing that stuck out to me is that it follows a similar plotline of Shirley Jackson's Haunting on Hill House and is eerily similar to Netflix's rendition of the book and the series Haunting of Bly Manor; however, the ending was crafted in the typical style of Sager with a delicious twist at the end that you do not see coming that makes it worth the read. Overall, for readers interested in this book just be forewarned that this book follows common “haunted house” troupes, has little character development, and if you have seen the Netflix shows noted above follows a very similar plotline that will leave you sitting there in a déjà vu moment.
Although there might be negatives for this book, it is a quick read to get you in the mood for the spooky season, but personally, for me, I would recommend reading Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House instead. She does an eloquent job of keeping the reader at the edge of their seat through her gothic haunted house-inspired prose. Also, just to note her book is nothing like the Netflix series (and in true bookworm opinion) the book is waaayyy better than the series.
Dit boek stond al een jaar op mijn te lezen lijst, maar ik wou het persé via audioboek lezen, net zoals de vorige boeken van deze auteur. Sinds ik audioboeken ontdekt heb lees ik quasi bijna alle thrillers die ik wil lezen via audioboek, omdat het in dit formaat meestal nog beter tot zijn recht komt.
Helaas kwam dit boek maar niet op Storytel en was ik het bijna vergeten, totdat ik toch eens snuisterde bij de Nederlandse audioboeken en de vertaling wel vond. Ik besloot dan maar om nog eens een audioboek in het Nederlands uit te testen. En ik moet zeggen, ik heb toch wel verschillende keren op mijn tanden moeten bijten bij de tongval en bepaalde uitspraken (er passeerde weer een therapuit of twee), wat me regelmatig uit het verhaal haalde. Maar uiteindelijk was het verhaal boeiend genoeg, dat ik mijn aversie uit kon schakelen en gewoon kon luisteren naar het verhaal.
En dat was toch wel met momenten behoorlijk griezelig en deed me twijfelen of er nu echt iets paranormaals gaande was of niet.
Ik was ook een grote fan van de manier waarop het verhaal verteld werd, aan de hand van een boek in een boek. Het gaf zo de extra dimensie en een onheilspellend gevoel terwijl je samen met het hoofdpersonage feit en fictie probeert te achterhalen.
De ontknoping, ondanks dat die spectaculair is, is er helaas weer eentje dat geen steek blijft houden als je er iets te lang bij stil staat. Maar ik ben bereid dit over het hoofd te zien, vanwege het leesplezier doorheen dit verhaal.
Home Before Dark is a great, if imperfect, haunted house story filled with twists and turns that will leave readers guessing through each moment of this gothic page-turner. I found the first quarter of the book to be kind of slow. In fact, my initial impression was that this book had been way over hyped. The premise of the book is that a family of three - mom, dad, and a little girl - flees a haunted house twenty five years ago. Although the girl remembers very little of her time in the house, her father's book about their experiences has been a defining factor in her life, much to her frustration because she believes it was all a lie. After her father dies she returns to the house. What will she discover? Interesting, but not revolutionary. The whole thing seemed vaguely similar to Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts, and other elements in Home Before Dark reminded me of various other horror books and movies too. I thought that this story was recycling a lot of familiar tropes, which to be fair might not have originated in some of books and movies I had previously seen them in either. But nevertheless my overall opinion was that Home Before Dark was nothing extraordinary. A horror novel written to appeal to “I don't read horror” thriller fans who were familiar with some of Sager's previous books perhaps? Yet, after the first 100 pages things started to pick up and I really got hooked. I'm not going to get into spoilers, but I'll just say that I didn't see the ending coming, and I actually liked how it ended up. The book was very twisty and overall a lot of fun, even if some parts of it were a bit less effective than others and I did ultimately feel that some parts of it felt a bit derivative of other works. I'd recommend this one, just don't go in believing the hype that it's the best horror novel ever. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wat een heerlijk boek! Je wordt continu heen en weer geslingerd tussen feiten en fictie. Zelfs tot het laatste hoofdstuk. Elk klein onderdeel van de het verhaal heeft een grote betekenis en al die onderdelen komen later in 1x allemaal bij elkaar. Echt fantastisch geschreven. Wellicht dat je sommige twist voelt aankomen. Er zitten er ook tussen die je echt zullen verrassen. Absoluut een aanrader.
Plot device of flipping between past (book written by Maggie's father) and present (Maggie's 1st person narrative) is tedious. It does not build suspense.
Something I picked out for psychological horror. The burb calls it a thriller however. Nicely twisty.
Why they do that to me I'm here thinking it was the dad BUT NO OHHHH NO THE DAD WASNT THE ONE WHO KILLED PETRA NOW. The family thinking it was ghost but it was really Spoilersomebody they know coming in there house by using the back Door oh my goodness... this book had me up up like made me not wanting to put it down. IM STILL SHOOKED AT WHAT HAPPENED. its a 3.5 star read
4 stars I had low expectations after reading Lock Every Door but I was pleasantly surprised
I think that this is probably my favorite Riley Sagar book so far, but I don't know if like him as an author? I love the concepts he comes up with, I love the ideas behind his books but I consistently find myself feeling like I'm left wanting more from him? Like the endings just don't do it for me.