Hello, my bookish besties! In case you didn’t know, one of my favorite readathons in the book community is the Summerween Readathon hosted by GabbyReads (and a special shoutout to her sister Rachel, who does so much for the readathon!). This year was the 5th anniversary of Summerween and my second year participating!
The Summerween readathon always has such fun prompts and I love prioritizing some horror/mystery/thriller reads in the summer (I say like these are not my most read genres anyway…) and this year was no different!
In typical Caitlyn fashion, I set a high goal for myself to complete in the week of the readathon while being extremely busy with work, but, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t! So, if you want to know what I read for Summerween and what I thought about each book, get comfy and cozy, grab your favorite beverage and let’s pretend that it’s Halloween with these scary reads.
As always, with Summerween there were 5 reading prompts for the week, this year the prompts were
- Read a book in the dark
- Read a thriller or horror book
- Read a book with a night sky on the cover
- Read a book with five words in the title
- Read a book that takes place in the summer
My favorite things about the Summeween prompts are that they’re specific to the readathon, but pretty easy to accomplish — though to be honest, I had a hard time finding a book with 5 words in the title 
now, let’s get into the books that I read this week!
Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis
A shocking, spine-chilling YA horror slasher about a girl searching for her dead mother’s body at the summer camp that was once her serial killer father’s home—perfect for fans of Friday the 13th and White Smoke
Temple Baker knows that evil runs in her blood. Her father is the North Point Killer, an infamous serial killer known for how he marked each of his victims with a brand. He was convicted for murdering 20 people and was the talk of countless true crime blogs for years. Some say he was possessed by a demon. Some say that they never found all his victims. Some say that even though he’s now behind bars, people are still dying in the woods. Despite everything though, Temple never believed that her dad killed her mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it.
Turns out, the farm that was once her father’s hunting grounds and her home has been turned into an overnight camp for queer, horror-obsessed girls. So Temple poses as a camp counselor to go digging in the woods. While she’s not used to hanging out with girls her own age and feels ambivalent at best about these true crime enthusiasts, she tries her best to fit in and keep her true identity hidden.
But when a girl turns up dead in the woods, she fears that one of her father’s “fans” might be mimicking his crimes. As Temple tries to uncover the truth and keep the campers safe, she comes to realize that there may be something stranger and more sinister at work—and that her father may not have been the only monster in these woods.
I was super excited to read Dead Girls Walking since it involved things in horror that I love. An isolated camp setting, family secrets, speculative elements…all of those appeal to me, however, this book never captured my attention. I listened to this one via audio while at work on day one of Summerween — listening on 2x speed it took me 5 hours and 30 minutes to get through the book and unfortunately, it felt longer than that.
While I thought it was interesting to follow the daughter of a serial killer, my excitement ended there. I wasn’t invested in this story at all, and that was pretty evident a few chapters in, but I kept going and hoping that I would get excited about it, but that never happened. I couldn’t tell the characters apart (that’s not on the voice actor, the voice actor did a great job of making the characters sound distinct), the atmosphere was…okay, and it just felt long. The audiobook is 11 hours long and I just sat there going “Why?”. I don’t think this book needed to be as long as it was, it dragged for me.
Honestly, I don’t have much more to say than that and I’m writing this about 30 minutes after finishing the book. It…was a book, and that’s what I’ve got for you.
Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose
After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest,
lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.
While going through their parent’s belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, the nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them have any recollection of. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it, before the video abruptly ends.
Beth, Nicole, and Michael must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.
I’ve never read a Jeneva Rose book before, and based on what some people had said, I was slightly nervous to do so. However, the plot of Home Is Where the Bodies Are was too intriguing to pass up and I’m really glad that I read it!
Honestly, I thought this book was great. I was hooked right from the start; I love multiple-POV thrillers, so I was excited that we were getting chapters from each of the kids’ perspectives. If you’re looking for a book with complicated family dynamics, hello you’re going to want to pick this one up! The relationships between Beth, Michael, and Nicole were interesting. I liked navigating the dynamic between all three of them and each pairing within the sibling group (Beth and Nicole, Nicole and Michael, etc.). Seeing how they all interacted and reacted to one another was fascinating, as well as how those dynamics changed and developed as the story went on.
I didn’t expect us to get as many flashbacks to the 90s as we did and that was such a pleasant surprise! Those flashback chapters were fascinating to me and I think they did a great job of helping to piece together the overall story (it also helped me figure out the truth before the characters did and I loved having my suspicions be correct).
I had a great time reading this and thought it was well done. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a thriller on the shorter side that involves complex family dynamics.
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.
As soon as the strangers enter their home, uncanny and inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?
When I opened the first page of We Used to Live Here there was a map and I instantly knew I’d be hooked. This sounds like a joke, but honestly, I love a good book map, and when a horror book has a map? Made for me. I also didn’t know that there were mixed media elements in this book and I was OBSESSED with the mixed media, (chat logs, video transcripts, etc.) and thought it added so much to the storytelling.
This is undoubtedly one of the best debut novels I’ve read in quite some time. I read around 244 pages in one sitting, and if I didn’t have to get up at 6:00 am for work the next morning, I would’ve read the whole thing that night. The atmosphere and vibes of this book were insane. From the very first page, the first sentence really, I felt so unsettled and I felt that way the entire time I was reading it. To be fully transparent, I felt super unsettled after I finished it as well. I kind of just sat there and went “Oh” and then tried to process what I read (spoiler alert, I still haven’t processed it).
The way Kliewer wrote the atmosphere was impeccable. I can’t think of another word for it, the descriptions and the feeling that I got from the descriptions were incredible. As I mentioned, there was such an unsettledness in the language and I was immediately on alert. What was so great about it was the subtlety — I couldn’t tell you why I felt unnerved, but I did, and the more unnerved Eve felt, the more unnerved I did, until I was reading this book while curled up into a ball because I was anxious (this is a good thing, this is how I hoped this book would make me feel with the comp to Get Out). I loved that we jumped into the action right away — that’s my preferred method of storytelling in horror, toss me into the deep end, let’s go!
The house in this book was endlessly interesting. It reminded me so much of Hill House (the show, not the book), specifically the red room at Hill House and I was hoping that it would continue with that vibe throughout the rest of the book, which it did. Oh man, honestly, just thinking about it right now to write this has me getting the chills. There was one moment that made me gasp and jump; I was so on edge throughout this entire book. This house scared the crap out of me (as did some of the characters).
I thought the characterization was great. I really liked Eve and was so glad to have her as our protagonist. That family that comes to the house…listen, if I ever met a family with the last name Faust, I would run the other way. Not today Satan, indeed! While the Faust family terrified me for a myriad of reasons, they were completely fascinating.
Long story short, I am obsessed with this book. I’m sure that I’ll be rereading it multiple times, and I can’t wait for the Netflix adaptation.
The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon
A genre-defying new novel, inspired by Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein, which brilliantly explores the eerie mysteries of childhood and the evils perpetrated by the monsters among us.
1978: at her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she’s home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love.
Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl.
Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere.
2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.
The Children on the Hill takes us on a breathless journey to face the primal fears that lurk within us all.
The Children on the Hill was another audiobook read and I thought the narrator, Erin Moon, did a fantastic job. I loved the way she switched her tone and pitch for different characters and the chapters from the perspective of the “monster” definitely give me chills at certain points, so shout out to her!
When I saw that this book was inspired by Frankenstein I was immediately intrigued. I love Frankenstein and think it’s completely brilliant, so I was curious to see how this book would draw inspiration from Mary Shelley’s classic. I think that McMahon did a great job of drawing inspiration from Frankenstein without creating a carbon copy — I felt that the main themes of Frankenstein were present in The Children on the Hill.
I liked the dual timelines and found both timelines to be interesting. The way the two timelines wove together to paint the full picture was well done and I loved the slow reveals. The big reveal towards the end of the book completely caught me off guard, I was surprised and I loved that. Looking back it makes sense, and I’m surprised that I didn’t see it coming, but that’s the mark of a good twist. Though there were horrific elements to this story, I wouldn’t consider this a horror. To me, it felt more mystery/thriller than anything else.
There were lots of things I liked about this book, but I did find myself zoning out a bit while listening. This, in part, was because I was listening to it at work, but there were times when I wasn’t completely invested even though I was interested. I liked this book, but some of it fell a little flat to me. However, if it sounds interesting to you, I think you should read it!
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.
Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
I won’t lie, I was slightly nervous to read What Moves the Dead. I had tried to read it a few months ago and couldn’t get into it so I put it down to try again later. I had been nervous that I wouldn’t end up enjoying it, and luckily, I was wrong! I thought this was a great retelling of Poe’s classic work.
This is the first book I’ve read by T. Kingfisher, and I’m excited to read more from her. I liked her writing style at lot, it was specific and detailed without dragging and she nailed the gothic vibes. The atmosphere was exactly what I was expecting; eerie and haunting with a subtlety that keeps the reader on their toes. The descriptions, especially towards the end, were so specific and for lack of a better word, gross, and I could easily picture what was happening.
The writing was also far more humorous than I thought it would be. There were multiple moments where I let out an audible chuckle, and I liked the addition of humor with so much darkness surrounding the story itself. I also loved all the Shakespeare references, the Lady Macbeth reference was on point.
I’m hoping to read What Feasts at Night soon since I thought Alex Easton was a very interesting character and good narrator, and I’ll definitely check out more of Kingfisher’s work.
My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino
Labyrinth meets folk horror in this darkly romantic tale of a girl who wishes her baby brother away to the Lord of the Wood
Growing up in the small town of Winston, Pennsylvania feels like drowning. Leah goes to church every Sunday, works when she isn’t at school, and takes care of her baby brother, Owen. Like every girl in Winston, she tries to be right and good and holy. If she isn’t the Lord of the Wood will take her, and she’ll disappear like so many other girls before her.
But living up to the rigorous standards of the town takes its toll. One night, when Owen won’t stop screaming, Leah wishes him away, and the Lord listens. The screaming stops, and all that’s left in the crib is a small bundle of sticks tied with a ribbon.
Filled with shame and the weight of the town’s judgment, Leah is forced to cross the river into the Lord of the Wood’s domain to bring Owen back. But the devilish figure who has haunted Winston for generations isn’t what she expects. He tells her she can have her brother back―for the price of a song. A song that Leah will have one month to write.
It’s a bargain that will uncover secrets her hometown has tried to keep buried for decades. And what she unearths will have her questioning everything she’s been taught to fear.
I’ve been desperately waiting to read My Throat an Open Grave for a long time, so let me tell you, when I saw a physical copy of it at the library when I went last month I grabbed it so quickly it’s amazing I didn’t knock the whole shelf over. If the words “folk horror” are used to describe a book, I will be all over it, and I love reading horror stories that are set in the woods.
Between the summary and the cover, I was expecting a very atmospheric read, and Bovalino absolutely delivered on that. The vibes of this one were off the charts, honestly — such an atmospheric and gothic read. The woods…oh man, those woods, I was terrified of them and completely captured by them, and I loved the village within the woods where the Lord of the Wood and his followers lived, it was just so interesting. I’ll be honest, there were some moments where, for me, it was just vibes and I was like “idk what’s happened but I love it!” and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Sometimes you just want the vibes!
I thought the characters were super interesting, and I really liked Leah. My heart went out to her, especially when she would continually talk about how she was a screw-up, or that she ruined things and was a bad person. I wanted to hug her and tell her that she was not screwed up and that she was not broken (so that one scene got me, if you’ve read it you know what scene I’m talking about). I adored Ruth and Fletcher and loved their bonds with Leah. And I really liked Tristan and thought he and Leah were such an interesting pair. I loved their scenes together (also, her stealing his sweaters all the time, honestly, loved it).
My Throat an Open Grave gave me some vibes from two of my favorite musicals — Hadestown and Spring Awakening. Did the Hadestown vibes start with the excerpt from “Orpheus, Eurydice, and Hermes” by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Franz Wright) at the beginning, and the whole working on a song thing, going into “hell” etc., etc. it was just giving Hadestown vibes and I loved that. I swear that there is a hidden Spring Awakening reference in this book because the quote is
“The dress is pretty and delicate with dainty eyelet flowers along the trim. I put it on and go to the bathroom to check how it looks. The dress makes me look pale and tired, but it reminds me of a similar dress from a musical that Jess and I use to watch clips from when we were younger, thinking we were rebellious”
To me, it sounds similar to Wendla’s dress at the top of the show, and the mention of them watching it and feeling rebellious absolutely made me think of Spring Awakening. Additionally, the relationships between the kids and adults in this world was very reminiscent of the musical, as was part of Leah’s journey. I was really getting the Spring Awakening vibes.
Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot and definitely want to revisit it! I’m glad that it ended up being a success for me, especially since I was really looking forward to it.
There you have it, all of my Summerween reads! I completed all the prompts
- Read a book in the dark — What Moves the Dead
- Read a thriller or horror book — Home is Where the Bodies Are and We Used to Live Here
- Read a book with a night sky on the cover — The Children on the Hill
- Read a book with five words in the title — My Throat an Open Grave
- Read a book that takes place in the summer — Dead Girls Walking
And my ratings for each book were
- Dead Girls Walking — 2
- Home is Where the Bodies Are — 4
- We Used to Live Here — 4.5
- The Children on the Hill — 3
- What Moves the Dead — 4
- My Throat an Open Grave — 4.5
Except for Dead Girls Walking (I am so bummed that I didn’t enjoy this, I cannot say it enough, I wanted to like it so bad) I think it was a very successful readathon! While I gave both We Used to Live Here and My Throat an Open Grave 4.5 stars, I would say my favorite book of the readathon was We Used to Live Here, but I had a great time reading these books.
I had originally planned to also read Called Upon by Bethany Lee for the prompt of read a book with a night sky on the cover, but unfortunately, I got about 5-7 pages in and knew that I could not continue with that writing style, so I decided to give up on that one. Luckily I had The Children on the Hill to fulfill that prompt!
Did you participate in Summerween? If so, how many books did you read, and which was your favorite? If you didn’t participate in Summerween, tell me about a book you read recently and loved!
Until next time!
we used to live here sounds really good, but perhaps a bit too creepy for my tolerance
i’d say it’s very similar to the vibes of mike flanagan’s house of hill house, so if that worked for you, then i think you’d be fine with we used to live here, but if hill house was too much than this one might be too!
I’m currently reading What Moves the Dead – glad to see you rated it highly!