This book is simultaneously corny and unnerving, and not in a good way. It's so difficult to follow, very disappointing considering the two authors who wrote this. Honestly, I did not want to finish this book but I figured I could at least see how they would end the story - not worth the extra reading! The ending was predictable, disorienting, and just empty... I definitely would not recommend this to anyone. I was tempted to give this book 2 stars for creativity, but in the end, no amount of creativity can save a poorly thought-out storyline and muddy symbolism.

A confused mess. I thought it got off to a decent start, but the descriptions of where the characters were going and what was happening were frustratingly I distinct. I need to be able to visualize what is happening in my head, but the authors kept losing me with either too much or too little detail.

Things went downhill from there. In all honesty, I'm still not 100% clear on what the mythology was. There seemed to be too many different things going on, with none of them explained in a way that made sense.

I read this in an afternoon, so it's hard to complain about the wasted time. I do feel like the opportunity to write a much better book that the authors wasted is a completely legitimate gripe. A very disappointing and poorly written book. I can't recommend this to anyone.

Flat characters. Stilted dialogue. Not thrilling, not scary, just mildly annoying and trite. Partake if you think you can stomach it.

That was one of the worst books I have ever read. It seemed like the authors watched a bunch of bad horror flicks and then jammed all of the ideas together into an implausible word storm, sprinkled with some good old- fashioned biblical wrath. I wish I could give it less than one star.

I’m going to be very brief: don’t waste hours of your life reading this book. Go for a walk. Pet your dog. Read the ingredients on a shampoo bottle repeatedly. All would be better choices. The best thing about this book is that it inspired me to write; after all, it got published, and I couldn’t possibly do worse.

3,5

El libro empieza con todo, engancha desde las primeras páginas. Más o menos en la mitad del libro se hace un poco pesado y confuso, por lo cual se me presentaron algunas dificultades a la hora de entender qué estaba ocurriendo en dicha casa. Llegando al final retoma bastante bien, pero su desenlace toma un tinte religioso que no fue de mi agrado. Es una historia amena y muy recomendable, quizá me hubiera gustado que en ciertas oportunidades no resultara tan rebuscado.

I don’t even have the words to describe all the reasons I did not like this book. It was so predictable, so over the top, so ridiculous. Like a bad slasher movie that tried to have a moral to the story. I finished it because I can’t leave a book unfinished, but boy would I like those hours of my life back.

Oof this book was bad.

The characters were unbelievable, the dialogue was atrocious, the plot was nonexistent, and so much of the book just did not make sense. I knew pretty early on that this book was not good, but I wanted to see what this train would look like when it crashed so I powered through.

The characters had little to no personality, and what personality they did have would change constantly and for no apparent reason. None of the characters were remotely likeable except for maybe Jack, and even his character was not much to talk about.

The dialogue was mind-numbing. Most conversations were just variations of the same argument where they yelled at each other for a few pages, and almost none of the dialogue made sense. The conversations also had no coherent train of thought and would change course so fast I think I have whiplash.

I genuinely cannot think of a single redeeming quality of this book. It currently holds the title as the worst book I have ever read. It was so bad that I'm not even mad I read it, because I knew after about 20 pages what I was getting myself into. You can give this book a pass.

This book was so... disappointing. I was recommended this book because I was told it was genuinely "scary." It was not. Not only was I not scared, but I also did not care at all about the characters and their predicaments. There was no development of the characters or the plot, and the constant switching of perspectives was so annoying. I should have checked that this book was a Christian one, because I was not a fan of the religious/supernatural aspects of this book. This novel was misogynist and anti-atheist in some parts, and as an atheist woman, it was not fun to read. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Why, why did I waste time reading this book when I could have been...Oh, I don't know, scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush? It's one of those crappy horror "thrillers" that make you feel kind of dirty when you're done. I do admit to finishing the book-- a fast read despite its gargantuan hardcover size-- but only because it held my interest JUST ENOUGH to wonder if it would improve. Like when they introduced Susan's character, I was muttering to myself, "Well, maybe this will liven things up," but no. By the midpoint I was hoping every one of them would die.

I don't need a horror novel to be literary revelation, but I do want to have some sympathy for the characters and have my flesh crawl a little, neither of which I experienced with this story. At least it came from the library.

Ok so let me just say first of all that it says NOWHERE on my edition of the book that this is "Christian fiction" (which i didn't even know was a thing tbh). So I feel that it should be noted that seeing as this book is "Christian Fiction" that I, a teenage Jewish atheist growing up in a super secular blue state, am probably not the target demographic for this book. However, seeing as I was not warned anywhere, I feel slighted enough to give this book a bad review anyway before it goes in the donation bin.

~ SPOILERS AHEAD ~

Ok. Let me just start by saying that I absolutely HATE it when you meet the bad guy at the beginning and you literally know from chapter three on that he will be the bad guy. Now I guess I get the whole symbolism thing about how the devil tries to lead you down the wrong path but still. Of course it was going to be Lawdale, and waiting for him to show up again was only adding to my suffering in trying to wade through this absolute mess of a plot, which had no real direction at any point in time.

Honestly I could go on and on all day about how the paranormal aspects came out of nowhere and made little to no sense (like I'm still confused about wtf the black smoke had to do with anything and why the reader needed the 'this is evil' messages shoved in their face all the damn time) or how the characters were super bland and annoying and had very few redeeming qualities.

But honestly, the thing that has me fuming the most is the stupidity of the whole thing. The fact that the whole terrible story is meant to be some extended metaphor of the coming of Christ just makes it that much worse. I didn't open this book to be prosthelytized to and that's what I got. This book had the potential to be maybe a little bit okay until I really started to realize how preachy it was. The fact that Leslie was abused as a child but turned to 'immodest ways' to cope just made my blood boil. Even when you look at the cast of characters, you really see such a stereotypical idea of 'godless, unsaved' people. You have the couple who lost a child (was it a miscarriage or was the child killed, I have no clue), one of whom is a writer and the other a singer (creatives who dont focus their energy on god), then we have the hardcore skeptic and promiscuous pretty woman who is also a psychologist, and finally we have the heartless businessman who only cares about money (and yet still somehow is the most sane and logical character). And to top it all off we have perhaps the worst Christian message of all in my opinion, that being the idea that hell is a reflection of the 'evil in our hearts' (even though we are all naturally sinners??) and that we bring that hell upon ourselves when we allow ourselves to be swayed by the devil. You're kidding me.

Okay this review got way longer than I intended so in summary if you're just looking for a good story, this book isn't it. But if you're looking for a fire and brimstone sermon that makes little to no sense has just as much of an impact, maybe pick this one.

I read this on recommendation of a friend years ago, and I don't understand in the slightest why they liked this book. It's no wonder we aren't friends anymore.

Despite the fact that this was supposed to be a creepy read, it was so boring and droned on and on. I disliked all the main characters to the point that I wanted all of them to die in the House of Nightmares and just have the book end.