Book review by Corey
Are Your Parents Home?
Are Your Parents Home? follows eighteen-year-old Ella Romero, who is left in charge of her younger brother and sister at their secluded lake house while their parents are away. What should be a normal night turns into something much worse when a strange man appears outside, refuses to leave, and becomes more threatening the longer he stays.
The book plays out like a very tense home-invasion horror story, with most of the fear coming from being trapped in one place while the danger gets closer and closer. It is graphic, nasty, and designed to keep the pressure on, so there is not much room to breathe once things really start moving.
The Goods
- Strong home-invasion tension
- Fast pace once the danger starts
- Claustrophobic setting works well
- Easy to get pulled into the situation
- Some very effective horror moments
The Bads
- Extremely graphic
- Some characters are lightly developed
- The violence can feel excessive
- Not much subtlety once things escalate
- Definitely not for sensitive readers
My Recommendation
This is one for horror readers who like home-invasion stories, splatterpunk, and books that keep things mean, tense, and uncomfortable from start to finish. The setup is simple, but that actually helps because the whole book can focus on the feeling of being trapped and waiting for something terrible to happen. If you enjoy extreme horror with a fast pace and a lot of graphic violence, this should hit the mark, but anyone who prefers psychological horror without the gore will probably want to skip it.