Hype Check (Review and Thoughts)

I wanted to start a new series of posts called Hype Checks where I read and review popular authors from my favorite genres. I want to see if they are worth the hype they get online and from my coworkers so to start off this series I want to talk about mystery/thriller author Riley Sager.

The book I chose to read by Sager, he's got 10 other titles so it's a rather impressive catalog

So I chose to read Home Before Dark and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I didn't know what to expect, I just remember my coworker audibly gasped when I had mentioned I had never read a Sager book before since he has so many. The story follows Maggie Holt as she returns to Baneberry Hall, the allegedly haunted house that her family lived in for about three weeks before fleeing and never returning. Her father wrote a book about their experiences, and this has really shaped her life to where everyone has this picture of her that is just untrue.

She intends to return to the "haunted" house in order to find out the truth about the building and some truths she may have been hiding from herself. Now onto my favorite part, what did I think and this will serve as a spoiler warning for Home Before Dark. I think one of the major positives was its structure. Early on in the story, we learn that the Holt family only stayed in the house for twenty days. So the chapters are structured as we jump back and forth from past to present. It was a great way to build up the tension to try and find out what caused the family to flee in terror. I also think many of the jump scares during the past chapters really worked and it played on more natural fears than the standard supernatural items that you might expect. Hint, these jump scares involve a lot of hissing and slithering.

I will say the final 50 pages or so took the overall rating down a bit since I feel like they added one twist too many. As we get to the end and truth starts to unravel around Maggie, we learn that the reason that her family leaves the house was because of her. I thought this was an excellent reveal moment as she must have repressed these memories for so long. However, they then reveal that this other character Marta also killed people in that house and then she proceeds to try and kill Maggie so the truth does not come out.

I think because these two twists were sandwiched together it brought my rating down as it felt like maybe one of them should have been pushed further back or one of them should have just been dropped all together. So I think my overall rating for this book would be a 3.75/5.

Is Sager worth the hype, well if I am being honest, I might need to read another of his books to get a fuller picture. I definitely look forward to continuing this series as I always question when a book blows up on social media platforms because I want to know too if the book is good. See everyone later, make sure to stop by the Nest again soon.