Rating: 3.75 / 5 stars

She Haunts Me Still is a blend of gothic academia, theatre school drama, occult curses, and intergenerational trauma. One of the things that attracted me to the book was the vibes, which were immaculate! The haunted university setting, New England vampire panic lore, intergenerational family curses, demonic cults and much more. The writing felt atmospheric and lusciously descriptive that really set the scene of an ex-sanatorium-turned-college. The theatre aspects were fun and peppered throughout the story via the characters being involved in a production of Romeo and Juliet.

I love how we were introduced to the main character Mallory (Mal)’s history and the introduction to the mystery surrounding her mother’s death and the role Shore College plays in it. Albeit very predictable, it felt like a very classic ‘solving a mystery against the clock’ plot. The mystery aspect kept me focused and engaged with the story because I genuinely wanted to know what was going to happen next with Mal and her friends. At first, I thought Mal was very childish and immature. But given that she is 19 and didn’t have the most present parental figures growing up, I gave her some concessions. For this same reason, I can understand why she so readily befriended the people she thought were like her. She develops towards the middle of the book, and because of this, I ended up liking her more in the second half. The story does feature a love triangle which is central to the story progression, but I definitely liked one of the romances more than the other as it felt more genuine (when is this not the case with a triangle?). I liked the queer rep, but I would have appreciated a little bit more exploration of Mal discovering she was bi as we are only given a brief glimpse into this.

I had a couple of smaller issues, one of which was that I felt like sometimes, we as the reader, weren't trusted to understand some of the themes and messages, which resulted in a lot of 'telling' of them. The other issue was that I don’t think the romantic love triangle had a place here. It felt forced on one side and just there for the sake of it. While I can see that it served a purpose at the end, I think a non-romantic (and essentially obsessive) relationship would have worked better between these characters and for the horror aspect of the book. I think these issues resulted in this book feeling a little YA, despite not actually being YA.

Definitely a very enjoyable read which has made me want to pick up more from the author. The comparisons to Phantom of the Opera, Romeo + Juliet, and Nosferatu are spot on and I would definitely recommend it to anyone that enjoyed these movies.

Thank you to the author, Bedford Square Publishers, and NetGalley for gifting me an eARC! This review is my own unbiased opinion.