review by Jacob Chon, age 15

There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

Summary: Love hurts… Makani Young thought she’d left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She’s found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn’t far behind. Then, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasingly grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani is forced to confront her own dark secrets. -Goodreads


    The young adult genre today is filled with coming-of-age stories. From books that explore the idea of love to novels that ask what it really means to be human, young adult is filled with bildungsroman tales. Stephanie Perkins’ There’s Someone Inside Your House is part of that genre, but it is not a light and fluffy story. The book grabs you with a grisly murder and never lets you go. Makani Young, a girl in the middle of Nebraska, is caught in the middle of death and destruction and must survive. However, as people around her begin to drop like flies, Makani believes her fate is sealed. Will she come out of this crisis alive? Or, is she doomed to be another statistic?
    One part of There’s Someone Inside Your House that many readers will enjoy is the common sense that the main characters possess. While most horror stories feature rash teenagers with an apparent death wish, Stephanie Perkins manages to craft an unnerving story that has characters who act logically. Another part that was very enjoyable was the theorycrafting of who the serial killer was. Although it seems obvious who the murderer is at first, the identity is always concealed from the reader until the author wants to reveal it. There was a subtle horror in the knowledge that your favorite character could be next. 3.5/5 stars.   


Find this book in our catalog: There’s Someone Inside Your House

Catalog Number: On Call

287 pages