House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Any time of year, any time of day, I am always down for spooky. Spooky books, movies, tv shows, anything. So, when House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig was released, I had to immediately add it to me TBR. Everyone was recommending it to me when I was creating my Halloween TBR last year, and I knew it would be the book for me. Of course, we all know I didn’t read it in a timely manner, but I am here now, and I am here with my review of this book!

I read this book for The Magical Readathon, so check out my TBR for that here.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

This book was literally made for me. Beautiful yet chilling castle, ghosts, unknown villainous monsters. This book literally checks off everything on my list. But something just didn’t work for me, and I was left disappointed. I am not saying I didn’t enjoy this book! A 3-star rating is good. It just wasn’t “stop me in my tracks and take my breath” away good. Those books are the books that I reserve my 5-star ratings for.

Things I liked…

The simple fact that it did check off so many things on my list made me like this book. All of the spookiness was wonderful to read, and I absolutely adored how the ending was written. I kept going back and forth whether I believed Annaleigh or her family. The panic and frustration that she was feeling when trying to communicate with people that were ignoring her were palpable. I honestly have not been that interested in where a story was going in a long time.

Things I didn’t like…

Unfortunately, there were some logistical aspects of the book that just didn’t work for me. First, I felt that the characters were underdeveloped. There were like 8 sisters or something like that and I could not tell any of them apart. There was literally nothing different about the way they were written except their age. I would have loved to see 8 unique characters with completely unique personalities, yet similar because they are sisters that grew up together.

There was also something lack luster about the first 200 pages of the book. It had a pretty good start, but then I felt like I was waiting for something to happen until it did, rather than enjoying the journey.

This was a short review, but I didn’t have much else to say. This was the second book this year that I was looking forward to tremendously, however was let down. This wasn’t a bad book by any means, but it definitely wasn’t a five star read.

But, if you do have any more spooky book recommendations, leave them down below. I am always looking for a good fright!