Play Nice

I loved this book so much. I couldnt put it down! It was so fun and creepy!

I loved this book and was completely invested. I was a little disappointed at the end I felt that there were several loose ends and some storylines wrapped quickly with little explanation or follow up that I would have loved. But overall this is an awesome book for Halloween time period and really wonderful writing.

Everyone loved this and not sure why, hardly anything happened the whole first half. And very little in last half.

Rachel Harrison takes the haunted house trope and twists it into something far more real. In Play Nice, the horror is not just what lives in the walls. It is what lives inside you. Clio returns to her childhood home with a plan to renovate and rebrand it for content. What she finds instead is a slow unraveling of memory, family history, and the uneasy question of whether her mother was right all along. The house does not just feel haunted. It feels tailored to each person it appears to. Each manifestation seems tied to something buried deep in that individual. It is as if the demon has been waiting for the right person to resurface. That idea carries the novel. Trauma becomes tangible, physical, and shapes what the characters see and experience. It is a clever lens for horror. Though it does raise questions that never quite settle. The rules of what is happening feel slippery. A priest vomiting a mouse, peanut butter smeared across a kitchen, and a demonic presence that predates the house itself. These moments blur the line between metaphor and literal horror in a way that can feel inconsistent rather than mysterious. Where the story finds its strongest footing is in the family dynamic. The mother’s life lands with a familiar weight. A woman worn down by custody battles, perfectionism, and survival leaves behind pieces of herself that her daughters never fully understand. That absence becomes one of the more haunting elements of the book. Not the demon, but the gaps in what was never said. The sisters carry that damage forward while circling each other with longstanding tension created by a lifetime of judgement. Watching Clio recognize her own patterns and choose to stop feeding them brings a satisfying shift in her arc. The resolution leans more toward emotional closure than narrative clarity. Clio steps into a healthier version of herself and claims a future that feels lighter. Some of the bigger questions about the house and its origins remain open. The choice to walk away from the house instead of reclaiming it as something healed may divide readers. It reads as release. It leaves behind the sense that something unresolved still lingers within those walls. The audiobook adds another layer to the experience. Alex Finke and Natasha Soudek deliver performances that pull out the emotional strain in each scene. The tension, the exhaustion, and the unraveling all come through in their voices with a precision that keeps the story engaging from start to finish. Play Nice is a fast and accessible listen with an intriguing angle on horror. It invites the reader to be reflective more than fearful. Some readers may feel frustrated that the haunted house mythology does not fully come together. This story will resonate with readers who like the twist of exploring how real life trauma has lasting effects on family, memory, personal growth, and self-aware healing.

Just finished with mixed feelings. I gave it 5 stars because the story itself was excellent. However the writing wasn't exactly my style. Too simplistic at times. I'm being picky, but the tense kept changing. Blame my mom for my sense of grammar. All in all a really good book though that I would love see made into a movie.