The Haunting by Natasha Preston

e-Audio, 08:39:24
Narrated by: Bailey Carr 
Release Date: September 26, 2023
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: October 24-25, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: Library’s Libby
TW: Murder, Violence, Toxic Relationship
For Readers Interested In: Slasher Horror, Romance, Bombshell/Cliff-hanger Ending, YA

      #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Natasha Preston is back with another pulse-pounding, twisty read!
      Haunted by the past . . .
     Penny’s trying to forget about her ex, Nash. His father was arrested for the brutal murder of four teenagers on Devil’s Night last year. Penny’s parents have forbidden her to have anything to do with Nash or his family. It’s hard not to think of what happened as spooky season gets underway–but she’s trying.
     That stops when she goes to the Halloween store with her friends to find a costume. What she finds instead is ripped from a horror movie: a girl from school bleeding out on the floor of a dressing room. Stabbed.
     Is a copycat killer on the loose? The adults are saying no. But Penny knows better.

*MY THOUGHTS*

When I saw this I was immediately weary. I have DNFed one of Preston’s books before. I think I was one of many of my friends that DNFed Awake by her. And since then I haven’t tried reading anything else by her. I heard her writing got better and as a slasher horror officiando, I HAD to at least give this a shot. And it was ok, but that ending was terrible.

Ok so the whole thing is there were a couple murders that happen the week before Halloween and the day of. It ends up being the dad of two kids who go to the local high school. Now they have been treated as outcasts and people hate them. They act like they are out to do the exact things their father did. But the girlfriend of one of the kids still has feelings for her ex. After everything that happened, her parents made her stay away from them. But she didn’t want to. She knew it was their father and waited for a while before she said eff it and reached out again. Unfortunately, this is right as the murders start happening again……

Now, this premise sounds bad ass right? Well it was. But unfortunately I don’t read reviews before I read the books. Because if I had, THEN I WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT THE ENDING OF THIS WAS TERRIBLE. It seems all of her endings are like this too. It was like that Hicks Road book I read earlier this year. It also ended in literally the middle of a scene. Why do y’all keep doing this? Do you get some like great joy out of it? It really makes zero sense because we don’t know how anything ends. And like does everyone die? Do the police get there? Do you do this so we can keep talking about it? Even if we’re talking about it in a bad light? Because I can tell you I won’t be recommending this to anyone unless they want to be unfulfilled by a book. Because Lordt knows I listened to the end like 5 times to figure out where the next part started and realized that that was all of it.

Now that my ranting is over, I think I was that mad because everything else about the book was good. It was like a real slasher movie. And I can’t say I found anything wrong with it. I was sucked into it like it was the first time I was watching like Halloween again. The writing style of Preston’s shows tremendous growth from the last book I read by her and for that I was grateful. Will I be going back to try reading her other work? No. But I did go back and read the synopsis of some of them just in case lol

Just like the writing style changed, her plot movement and plot devices did too. I wasn’t at all bored during the book and it was never like slow moving or weird. I was actually pretty into this. I found myself like listening all the time. As soon as my son went to sleep or started watching tv or not paying attention, I was losing myself in this book. It was actually pretty good.

Besides the ending, the thing that was driving me bat shit was the characters. I was OVER IT. Every time they went off on their own, every time they acted like they couldn’t be harmed, every time they didn’t look over their shoulder, or anything, I wanted to reach in the book and shake them. Like bodies are wracking up and the only thing y’all can think to do is go to your town’s fair and go in a maze in a big ass cornfield? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. I don’t think I understand. But I get it, these are teens, so they were like hard headed and didn’t want to listen. Even if it meant not dying.

I also thought the narrator was really good. I have listened to A LOT by Bailey and I thought they were incredible in all of those. (In Holly Jackson’s books? Hell yes!) Definitely one of my favorite narrators that helped turn this story from just ehh to mid. I think without having such a good narrator I would have rated this differently. And I don’t mean better……..

This book had so much potential, but the characters and the weird ass ending made it so mid! She should have gotten another pass by her editor or even some more ARC readers to tell her not to ruin this book like this. Because Lordt knows this could have been something good. But it went from good to just MID.

Overall, I give this