Review: Welcome to the Dark House

Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

When an email goes out to fans of director Justin Blake, who created the Nightmare Elf movies, wanting their biggest nightmare in an essay for a chance to win a spot to meet Justin in person, face their nightmare and get a sneak peak on the new movie he is currently directing.

So for seven lucky people, this is going to be a dream come true when they email their nightmare in 1,000 words or less.

And so Natalie, Ivy, Shayna, Taylor, Patrick, Frankie, and Garth all arrive at the Dark House - the place they will be staying during the weekend getaway. All of the contestants have their own nightmares that they don't want to talk about, and all are there at their own discretion. Some are even there against other people's wishes. But for one reason or another, each of these teens have a reason for wanting to meet Justin Blake and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Because Justin creates horror films, there is definitely a lot of tricks and scares along the way. But soon the contestants find out that not all of the tricks that are played are supposed to be funny. In fact...many of the scares that happen are meant to scare them...to death.

The more they are at the Dark House, the more they realize that they are not safe. But now they have to play the game and pass facing their fears - otherwise they may never leave the Dark House alive...

For some reason, I've been really wanting to read a horror, scary book, even though I really don't enjoy those books too often. But I have finally found one! At last!

Sure, there might be scarier ones out there, but this one creeped me out just right without making me go into an asylum institution so I'm okay with that :)

I seriously think it's Ivy's story that got me the most. Probably because hers was the one that was explained the most at the beginning of the book, and I was reading that part late at night in my bedroom and it was just too real for me at the moment, so I shut the book instantly and thought of happy things.

The other characters we find out their nightmares, but they didn't really creep me out as much because they weren't explained as well as Ivy's, I think.

If I were any of those kids, I never would have submitted an essay to that place because it is creepy as hell. That's not my thing, but I know that there are lots of people out there that like that kind of thing. But after reading about what happens to all of the contestants? I'm happy being a scardey pants :)

I'm so excited for the sequel novel and to see how things get wrapped up. I did just read that Stolarz wanted to make this a trilogy, but things didn't work out so I'm hoping that there isn't a lot of unanswered questions left at the end of the book. I can only hope that it will be a satisfactory ending for this great, creepy novel!

So glad I finally got around to reading it! And I'm going to recommend it for my bookclub to read! Maybe around Halloween... hehe

View all my reviews