Book Review
Title: When Ghosts Call Us Home by Katya De Becerra
Genre: Young Adult, Horror
Rating: 3.5 Stars
I didn’t really know anything about When Ghosts Call Us Home before getting into it but I was intrigued by the cover and synopsis. It is essentially a young adult horror novel that combines the setting of The Haunting of Hill House with the found-footage horror genre. This description is incredibly accurate but I wouldn’t have labelled it as horror, it more represents the paranormal genre rather than horror. We are following Sophia’s search for her missing sister, Layla, who is five years older.
When Sophia was 12, Layla created a horror movie similar to the Blair Witch Project and it showed Sophia being terrified to an extreme degree but doesn’t answer the question of why Layla did this. Obviously, there is a lot of love between the sisters otherwise Sophia wouldn’t be looking this hard for her sister and this obsession leads Sophia back to the place Layla filmed her movie, Cashore House. It’s also the place where Sophia developed mental and emotional problems and where Layla went missing two years before the start of the book.
From what we know about Layla at this point I really disliked her but the only version of her we are presented is from Sophia. These versions of Layla are contradicting but because Sophia is so loving in her thoughts towards Layla we are compelled to give her a second chance but we doubt whether Layla was sincere towards her sister or whether there is something darker going on. So diving deeper into the mystery elements, Layla went missing at Cashore House from her college dorm and Sophia decides to get to the house by helping a director with a reenactment to bring his career back to life. However, we mustn’t forget that this is essentially a haunted house novel.
Sophia is completely uncomfortable from the beginning of filming but it does begin to bring back memories but then there are some extremely strange twists and turns that completely took me by surprise and not in a good way. Another thing that felt unnecessary to me was the romance as it didn’t need to included and felt extremely shallow despite the love interest being an interesting character. This was an issue with most of the side characters as they felt severely underdeveloped compared to Layla and Sophia.
My biggest issue with the book overall was it was very disjointed and strayed into several different genres without deciding on what it wanted to be. It was a part mystery, part paranormal thriller and part cult story without committing to any of the narratives it presented. While I did enjoy the atmosphere and the core of the story it felt underdeveloped and rushed in places. Overall, I felt that When Ghosts Call Us Home had some really strong elements but it lacked a sense of direction and that let it down.
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