House At The End of the Street Review

TITLE House at the End of the Street
AUTHOR Lily Blake
PUBLICATION August 21, 2012 by Poppy
READ August 17-18, 2012

Seeking a fresh start, newly divorced Sarah and her daughter Elissa find the house of their dreams in a small, upscale, rural town. But when startling and unexplainable events begin to happen, Sarah and Elissa learn the town is in the shadows of a chilling secret. Years earlier, in the house next door, a daughter killed her parents in their beds, and disappeared - leaving only a brother, Ryan, as the sole survivor. Against Sarah's wishes, Elissa begins a relationship with the reclusive Ryan - and the closer they get, the deeper they're all pulled into a mystery more dangerous than they ever imagined.

This novel includes a fold-out poster!

While perusing Chapters this past weekend I came across House At The End of the Street, and seeing Katniss on the cover, I was immediately sold. I had never heard of the movie before but upon seeing the perfect horror movie cover and the eerie premise I knew this book was right up my alley. Now, one thing that did deceive me a tad was the "Now A Major Motion Picture" on the cover, I figured that this was a novel that was made into a movie after publication but instead it is actually a novel based off of the screenplay of the movie. It's a very quick read at only 188 pages, so it's not the most developed tale I have ever read but it plays out exactly as you would imagine the movie and kept me entertained the whole way.

This is a horror/mystery through and through, from the very beginning when we hear about what happened in Jacobsen home I was strapped in for the ride. We have all the elements to make for a good scare, a single mother moves into a upper class neighborhood with her daughter and hears all about their deep dark secrets. After Carrie-Anne Jacobsen fell off the swing and suffered head trauma she was never the same, she was unruly and she had to be strapped down for her own safety. One night she takes a hammer to her parents head and escapes out into the woods, legend has it that she died, but her body was never found. Now Carrie-Anne's brother, Ryan, lives in the very house that the tragedy happened in and is outcast from the whole neighborhood.

As I said, this novel is short so we don't have the most developed characters ever but the glimpses that we get into Elissa's past really makes her stand out and lets us understand her motivations as much as possible. I liked her, she was into music and didn't have the easiest life ever. It made sense to me why she was so empathetic to Ryan and didn't seem off kilter to me. We also have Tyler, the snobby rich kid who we are supposed to hate, and he came across perfectly too. For the small amount of pages I was really pleased with how much I came to understand the characters.

The mystery is what really drives this story throughout we know that something is amiss but I could not pinpoint it for the life of me. Once the truth came out I will say that I was suitably surprised and my mind had not once strayed that way in the duration of the novel. I would probably recommend seeing the movie before reading the book, because I do still want to see the movie and now I know how it ends. But none the less, it was an enjoyable, quick read that took me by surprise.