First, thanks to Simon Pulse and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title. Overall, I enjoyed the book, up until the end. I was really excited to start it, when it showed up at the bookstore where I worked a little earlier than I thought it was supposed to be released. The cover is just so awesome! If you haven’t seen the physical copy of the book, you should go to a bookstore and check it out. The slipcover does something really cool when you take it off.
So, the main character is a girl named Paige. Her parents were Hollywood royalty, a director and an actress. But her father has done what they all seem to do, traded her mother in for a younger model/actress. So her mother has packed up Paige and her brother Logan and moved them out Idaho. To a big old house in a tiny little town. They live in a beautiful setting with mountains in the distance. When they arrive, it is winter and Paige is kind of excited to see her first snow. But the house has issues to start with. First, when they walk in, there are these fly paper strips hanging from the ceiling in the front hallway, and they are covered with flies. Well, Paige’s mother is kind of a hippy type person, and thinks this is cruel, so they take them down and throw them out. But soon, like the next day, there are clouds of flies in the doorway now. Even though it is winter. Not only that, Paige sees spiders everywhere.
The best room in the house is taken by Logan, her younger brother. She lets him have it because of the horrible noise that she hears from it, a buzzing type of noise, that no one besides Paige seems to hear. Now, back to the spiders. Paige has always been extremely creeped out by them. So her brother suggests thinking about them in a scientific manner, and when she does her journaling/blogging, she makes a point to have counted them every day.
The new school goes great until the most popular girl’s boyfriend hits on Paige, and then she is stuck with only the weird girl in school, Chloe, as her friend. Chloe is very interested in the house and wants to know if it is haunted, because it used to be a hospital. There are strange noises and lights in the house, a door that is sealed off, and windows on the outside that aren’t open to anything. They find out what is in the basement, and it kind of ties into the whole story, though not necessarily in a frightening way.
The whole story is told through Paige’s journal/diary as the title implies. It gets creepier and creepier as the story goes along. Her brother gets sick, something in the house is getting to him. And then he has trouble sleeping. There is a scene or two with the spiders that totally gave my skin the creepy-crawlies. But then, then comes the ending. It builds up so good, and is so good, and then, well let’s just say the ending isn’t a good book ending.
Without giving anything away, the ending is a major twist. The type that you often see in horror movies, which up until this point, the book has been just like one, in a good way. The problem is that in movies, you’re able to see flashbacks, things to help you see just what you missed as you went along. As this is a diary, from one point of view, you don’t get any of these flashbacks, any way to know for sure if the twist is real, or what. And that honestly destroyed the whole book for me. On Goodreads I gave it a 3 star rating, because up until the end it was so good, and soo scary. But the ending almost made me drop it to a 2. I think you can stop around page 295, or June 16th diary entry, if you want all the ends tied up neatly, problem solved kind of ending. If you want it to kind of end like some movies do, but still an okay open type of ending, stop on page 296, or the June 17th, 3 am entry. After that, it just all falls apart.
I was curious about this book! Thanks for posting an honest review about what you thought!
It wasn't a bad story, just be prepared for the ending.
Sounds like a really interesting read, minus the spiders thing, lol, which just creeps me out in a major way π Most of all I'm curious about the ending now!
Loved reading your thoughts about it.
Yeah, the spiders part, especially the one I mentioned specifically, was really skin-crawling!!
That's really too bad that the ending falls apart since the rest of the book was so good. π I think the spiders alone would creep me out. π
@dino0726 fromΒ
FictionZeal – Impartial, Straightforward Fiction Book Reviews
The ending would probably have been great in a movie, but they would have had flashbacks or something to make it work. There was nothing in this for that.And yes, the spiders were creepy!
Oh man, the ending is that bad?? I'm happy it delivered on the creepy though! I'll need to add this to my Halloween list. I know I probably should heed your warning is not read the end, but I'm a curious creature!
It's not bad exactly, it just didn't work for me like it would in a movie where you would have little flashbacks to help you see what you'd missed. If you read it, you'll have to let me know what you end up thinking.
Good review. This book sounds scary and the cover looks scary too. π
It was really creepy for sure! Thanks for stopping by!
The book sounds very interesting but knowing the ending isn't very good (and the spiders) has me thinking twice about reading (though I probably will just because). Thanks for sharing!
Like I said, just stop at that one point, and it will still be a good, and have a good ending! π
I love a book that looks better in physical form. I love a creepy read the closer I come to Halloween so I'll keep my eye on Diary of a Haunting.
Sarah @ One Curvy Blogger
The cover is so cool! It is a creepy read up to a point, so definitely give it a try. Thanks for stopping by!
Currently reading this.
I am really enjoying it so far because it is creepy, and I know the ending will be abrupt as all reviews have said. Lol. I've been all over the internet because of the stinking editors note. Apparently this is based off of some true story! That definitely gave me a Paranormal Activity feel after I read that.
I enjoyed hearing what you thought about the book. And thanks for non-spoilers! οΏ½οΏ½
It was one of the best creepy books I'd read in a long time! But the ending. GAh! I can't describe how much the ending made me mad. Hope you enjoy it and don't let the ending bother you as much as it did me. And I love the Paranormal Activity movies!
I read the book but it was hard to keep up with it but it was creepy.
It definitely had some parts hard to keep up with, but yeah, it was one of the creepiest! Thanks for stopping by!