Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.
I honestly loved this entire book. Becks and Jamie were great. The ending was great and it had me wondering what would other people do in the situation that they got themselves into there. A very good haunted house horror novel.
The Housemate follows Becks who is a young and queer woman who breaks up with her long-term girlfriend at the start of this book. Becks is sleeping on a mutual friend (well mostly her ex’s friend’s) couch and realizes she’s eventually going to have to leave to find something else since she’s not being allowed to move on the way that she wants to from her ex. When Becks finds a shared house listing that fits her budget and is open and airy she thinks there must be a catch. But after moving in and meeting her new housemates, Cress, Niall, and Jamie, she starts to wonder if things can work out. But when she starts to hear noises in the night, gets sleep paralysis, and then neverending handprints keep appearing, Becks worries that her new home is haunted. And quickly she and her housemates realize they are going to have to do something before they all end up dead.
I really enjoyed Becks. Her dealing with just being really broke and having no other choice but to stick it out in a haunted house was a lot. I also loved that Harwood didn’t shy away from the fact that Becks was also dealing with some straight up PTSD from her terrible relationship and she really doesn’t want to be forced back into a situation that she just escaped. I also liked that everyone was like yeah your house is haunted and didn’t blink an eye. Harwood also did a great job with developing Jamie, Niall, and Cress. They all felt real and their reactions to things felt very real too. And heck, even the crushing disappointment that Becks got when she was failed again and again by people as well as organizations that weren’t helping was real too.
The flow of the book was really good, no slow parts, just a nice steady pace. And the setting of the house that had a name change and dark history was great. I wish that we had delved into it a bit more honestly, but I get why Harwood gave us just enough to know how and why this place was haunted. What I really enjoyed though is that there did not seem to be a neat solution to the whole problem that seemed readily available.
I also really enjoyed how Harwood chose to end things. It was not expected, but I was definitely wanting some more pages to follow all of the characters a year plus later.
