Content Warning: Mental illness themes, suicide attempt, horror themes
A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat
Genre: Young Adult Horror
Publishing Date: January 16, 2024
Book Tour with TBR & Beyond.
My review
5 stars
Starting with the rough part. Although the book has a lot of warnings about the strong triggers, the book is not about them (I mean that it's not about moving us closer to the incident, it's about putting distance between the negative experience and forward, towards a positive journey).
It takes place six months after a mental issue incident. Starting a healing journey, they move to their abandoned family house. This family needs to be united more than ever.
We eventually learn what the incident was, and how it was, but the book focuses on dealing with a house full of perils and dangers. Libby needs to be strong to protect her family and recognize the signs that will show that others need help too. Do not let it discourage you from reading this eery ghost story. It's awesome for any time of the year, and perfect for spooky season.
The sisters are very different but amazing together, their mom is a brave woman who decided to love and have children using a donor and assuming all the responsibility for raising them and loving them.
The house is amazing, I hope this becomes a show or a movie. There are masks in the house, and spirits, not all are good, and not all are evil, the masks offer more than beauty and concealment to those who wear them. They are not regular masks, nor the seance that will be held there now that the family returned have ever been experienced in recent years.
Secrets will be unfolded and more than ever they must stand strong as a family. Flynn is a great character, and one external to the family but crucial to them.
The cover changes color under the light. I was more in love with this book than before when I noticed it. The book is a bit long, but it works well to create tension. This is my first contact with this author, but now I want to read the previous title.
Book Links:Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/160047194
About the Author: Ann Fraistat is an author, playwright, and narrative designer. Her debut novel is What We Harvest, out now with Delacorte Press, and her second book, A Place for Vanishing, is coming January 16, 2024. Her co-author credits include plays such as Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending, and alternate reality games sponsored by the National Science Foundation. She lives in Maryland.
Synopsis:
A teen girl and her family return to her mother's childhood home, only to discover that the house's strange beauty may disguise a sinister past, in this contemporary gothic horror from the author of What We Harvest.
The house was supposed to be a fresh start. That's what Libby's mom said. And after Libby’s recent bipolar III diagnosis and the tragedy that preceded it, Libby knows she and her family need to find a new normal.
But Libby’s new home turns out to be anything but normal. Scores of bugs haunt its winding halls, towering stained-glass windows feature strange, insectile designs, and the garden teems with impossibly blue roses. And then there are the rumors. The locals, including the mysterious boy next door, tell stories about disappearances tied to the house, stretching back over a century to its first owners. Owners who supposedly hosted legendary masked séances on its grounds.
Libby’s mom refuses to hear anything that could derail their family’s perfect new beginning, but Libby knows better. The house is keeping secrets from her, and something tells her that the key to unlocking them lies in the eerie, bug-shaped masks hidden throughout the property.
We all wear masks—to hide our imperfections, to make us stronger and braver. But if Libby keeps hers on for too long, she might just lose herself—and everyone she loves.
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