3.5 stars

this was fun, but less haunting than i expected after the haunting of hill house and bly manor (to be fair, i've only seen the netflix adaptations). jackson has a fantastic way of setting the scene and creating an atmosphere, and i loved merricat's unreliable narration. this is a lovely little story about two strange sisters bonded together thru feelings of otherness and love, and it really is a lot more wholesome than i thought it would be. i enjoyed the writing and the story; i understand why jackson didn't really explicitly tell the readers why merricat killed their family (although i understand the movie makes it explicitly about abuse) and that's fine, it just caught me off guard a bit, even though the entire time i had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. all in all, i had a good time with this book and story, i'm just not raving about it.