The September House

WOW! This book! I don’t know where to begin. This is certainly not your typical haunted house tale. And I really didn’t expect to laugh hysterically at the end. That being said, this is not at all a funny book. It’s horrifying and gory and bloody and mystifying. Unreliable narrator is an understatement and actually does the narrator a disservice. You’ll have to read it to find out for yourself what is real and what is reality.

This book was a little slower to build up momentum than I had expected, and in fact I almost put it down about a third of the way through. I’m so glad I didn’t, however, because from there things picked up with a vengeance! The ending is nothing short of awesome. This book really, really surprised me—overall it kind of has the feel of something like Burnt Offerings, if Burnt Offerings had been written by Grady Hendrix. Great book for spooky season; give it a read!

Before launching into criticisms, I’ll express my envy of the author’s accomplishment in penning, “The September House.” Carissa Orlando leveraged her experiences and expertise as a doctorate-level clinical psychologist in crafting an engaging and chilling tale of a blood-soaked haunting. The author’s therapeutic work with families and communities clearly influenced her portrayal of the main protagonist, Margaret Hartman, providing a lens through which her inherent and learned traits could be viewed.

Now the criticisms: I generally enjoyed this novel, but Orlando’s darkly humorous tone occasionally missed the mark for me. Margaret’s familiarity with her host of ghostly co-inhabitants made their actions and triggers predictable, allowing for the establishment of routines and strategies… and, I guess, also helping Margaret to find the humor in her annual haunting? Margaret’s resilience, tenacity, and flexibility were apparent (as was her occasional rigidity and obstinance); however, I was often distracted by how un-distracted and unperturbed Margaret was in the midst of all but the very worst of the ghosts.

Also, similar to my conflicted feelings about Paul Tremblay’s “A Head Full of Ghosts,” I appreciate the exploration of mental health issues and their impact on behavior, but not if their existence renders the story’s supernatural and occult elements mundane. For fear of dropping major spoilers, I won’t comment on whether or not that’s the case in this instance, but it becomes a central question of the novel.

I felt so many things reading this book…. I laughed, cried, almost threw up, was scared, doubted the reliability of the narrator, and found myself rooting for ghosts. Thoroughly enjoyable!

I rather enjoyed this book. I'll admit i was kept guessing through the whole book...was the house truly haunted and the ghosts real or was Margeret just losing her mind? Very entertaining and great story telling. I almost gave it 5 stars, but that is reserved for books I enjoyed so much I would read them again. or for books that left me thinking about them long after I was done or had some profound effect on me. I still very much enjoyed this book.