Dark House by Karina Halle
Series: Experiment in Terror (#1)
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
There’s always been something a bit off about Perry Palomino. Though she’s been dealing with a quarter-life crisis and post-college syndrome like any other twenty-something, she’s still not what you would call “ordinary.” For one thing, there’s her past which she likes to pretend never happened, and then there’s the fact that she sees ghosts.
Luckily for her, that all comes in handy when she stumbles across Dex Foray, an eccentric producer for an upcoming webcast on ghost hunters. Even though the show’s budget is non-existent and Dex himself is a maddening enigma, Perry is instantly drawn into a world that both threatens her life and seduces her with a sense of importance.
Her uncle’s haunted lighthouse provides the perfect catalyst and backdrop for a horrific mystery that unravels the threads of Perry’s fragile sanity and causes her to fall for a man, who, like the most dangerous of ghosts, may not be all that he seems.
Well, fuck.
I have no idea how I feel about this so I’m just going to leave it at three stars. Do I like Perry? Not sure. I can’t tell if I think she’s a delightful misfit and a welcome change from the usual speshul snowflake, or if she’s just a petty, judgmental bitch with an infuriating lack of self-esteem. I went back and forth with her throughout the whole frigging book.
And Dex? Is he interesting and complex? Or a complete asshole? I couldn’t make heads or tails of him. And what the fuck was up with that cheesy speech about Perry during the meeting with his boss? I thought the message was fantastic but the way it was done just seemed completely out of character. And don’t get me started on his propensity for the word “retarded” and the fact that he seems to think that bulimia is something that stupid people “subscribe” to instead of a legitimate disease.
I did like the creep factor, for the most part. There was one scene there in the middle though that probably should have creeped me out more than it did. The geography of it was sort of off though, and I ended up re-reading passages because I thought I’d skipped pieces. La, la, la, I’m running down the beach. Ooh, now I’m climbing a cliff, it’s dark. Wait, where the fuck did this forest come from?
There was also some strange sentence construction, a few weird plot holes, and some editing fails. Overall, I liked this. Sort of. I think. Everyone assures me that this series gets better with each book so I’ll soldier on. But if they’re wrong…
*glares threateningly at everyone*
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