• The last maybe %10 slaps you
• Jade as a character is extremely well done the entire book. She is extremely realistic for someone going through what she is going through.
• I don't know enough slasher references. This made a lot of it go over my head. Somebody has seen them all and somebody is Stephen Graham Jones
• Loved the last few chapters, but it ended abruptly leaving unanswered questions. (Book 2?)

It needed some more contemplation from the main character’s flawed perspective but it was enjoyable.

Love a satirical crusade driven church displaying the true corruption of its factual history. Throughout the book hypocrisy and irony is given from the wisdom of the cursed team of devils. The team is hilarious and will make you feel like you have started a DND campaign with friends. The only issue I had was the dragging part in the middle, and i dont think the book needed to be so long because of that. However this was totally redeemed with the second half of the book. The set up for a second book was still exciting on the last page, a new character even more interesting than all the others, i already love her addition to criticisms of the church!

Dont need shock value triggers because you cant write any better than to throw in forced r-word scenes to your book

Dont need another highly insensitive, shock value only triggers to waste my time on because you cant creatively write about these topics.

Melodramatic not in a fun way, and who the hell dreams in full dialogue for 20 pages in real life anyway? Also, it was really repetitive, i dont need to hear the same thoughts from the main character 5 times, reminded every chapter. Once is supposed to be enough.

An enjoyable horror though i had my problems with it. The supernatural situation seemingly has no lesson or purpose. The ending is confusing and lacks in plot, we really arent given any explanation or purpose, as to what happened the entire book. It seemingly was pulled out of thin air.

The grief Macy endures is pretty overplayed in my opinion. After a year, an anniversary of a death is hard yes, but it is as if nothing at all has been processed or changed, in an entire year. She is old enough to be a functional adult yet has zero skills and it is not explained why through the story or writing. Was her father essentially a deadbeat even though Macy shows no memory of this? There are clues that things she didnt know about her father play into the two sister’s current position of being abandoned by parental figures. I feel as though he has something here but it isnt explored quite enough to make sense.

I did enjoy guessing what was happening- are the consequences of not following the rites representative of OCD intrusive thoughts? (short answer no. Even though the author directly says this is OCD in the author’s note.) Yes, Macy must follow the rites to keep everything from crashing down. These rites seem arbitrary and repetitive like an obsession someone developes to keep bad things from happening. But the lesson at the end wouldnt make sense when applied to OCD. She also doesn’t accomplish these rites leading her to ultimately experience the consequences of some unknown torturous force. This is quite the opposite of how OCD works? I was proud near the end when she must accept the rites as sort of impossible and refuses to do one, but the consequence of that is THE OPPOSITE of how it goes in therapy. The sky doesn’t fall. Thats the entire point. You just have anxiety about the sky falling and learn to live with it. So i didnt really appreciate that at all. I do not have OCD and i am not a psychologist so i cannot comment further on this really and would love to hear what they think about this representation.

It is written in a way that keeps you reading, and I do like this author. But unfortunately it doesn’t live up to the horror genre I am used to in which there is an actual point to enduring hardships of unimaginable pain, and these trials usually represent SOMETHING in literature throughout history. It feels more like a horror film than a horror book in that the campy ending is widely used (oh noes the horrors continue forever without pause.) I ended the book feeling like there was nothing behind this story other than some freaky fears most people can relate to mushed together. Also minus a golden star shaped cookie for the old woman is scary monster trope. Seriously?