Cyn Balog

Not sure when I've read a book with a more twisted plot. It starts with a girl and a boy texting, then quickly switches to her being secured to a small bed in an old house where she's fed unsavory gruel by a sour faced old woman. From there it shifts to her flashbacks of what little she can remember...a mad dash with her parents, a frightening epidemic and then what? How did she end up a captive? How that came about involves a strange boy, some Stockholm Syndrome on her part, a gradual suspicion that something's far from right, and some dandy plot do-di-dos that left me shaking my head.… (mehr)

My first Balog work, but definitely not my last. A great little haunted house story with a wonderfully inventive twist of an ending. Now, for more meat to my review (and spoilers! - you've been warned!) - I loved how unreliable the main character was as a narrator. I was never quite sure if Seda was going to be the villain or the victim and I adored how Balog used the idea of three sets of twins to set up the family dynamics. Seda's twin may have been reabsorbed (or not?!) but he was definitely as much a part of the overall story as the other four siblings. And the dynamic between Seda and her mother was powerfully written. The mother may have been some famous horror film professor but her narcissism was hard to read at points, even if it was supposed to be part of the twisted ending. The mother chose an overgrown, monstrous house over her marriage. As in Stephen King's The Shining, the winter weather was itself a silent character that had a lot of impact on the main character's decisions. The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is that apart from Heath Hunter, the other teens felt like caricatures of prescribed formulaic types. However, I LOVED the introductions to each chapter being a part of the 1980s murder mystery hotel brochure.… (mehr)