I'm perpetually looking for scary/horror stuff for our middle school readers. This is a solid gothic with some gruesomely weird elements that doesn't have any "adult" content that would make it inappropriate for a school visit. It reminded me a little of The Shining mashed up with The Yellow Wallpaper by way of The Secret Garden. It's weird. Also a quick page turner of a read. ( )

Mrs. Valdez has taken an assignment to be a teacher for a girl who can not leave home. This is no ordinary home, but a mansion surrounded by a labyrinth of atrocities, grotesque statues that represents the things that go bump in the night. These atrocities do not stop at the end of the labyrinth, they extend into the house, and live in the halls and stained glass. The house is a metaphor for the people that live inside it.

Isabell is Mrs. Valdez’s new charge. But she isn’t ordinary. She’s not even alive. But Mrs. Evers knows her daughter is still in the house and thinks that if she has something to occupy her mind, she will stop the pranks around the house. The cast is rounded out by Humbert Evers who will give his wife whatever she needs or wants. Happy wife, happy life. Robin is the housekeeper. She cooks, she cleans, and she is in love with her 82 inch TV. Raul is the current property caretaker. The bane of his existence is the capybara Princess who manages to frequently get out of her pen and wreak havoc around the house.

This book is a think piece. Valdez slips in and out of dreaming with such ease that the reader, like the character needs to check what she is wearing to tell if this is the real world or a dream. This story feels incomplete. We know very little about Valdez. She has lost a child of her own, and her partner has left. It is what prompted her to take this job. The reader only knows this because we walk in her dreams. The first of the book is all about Valdez and her experience of the house and the Evers. But as the story moves on, it becomes the story of the Evers, the lies of the home, and what is real and what is smoke screen.

This is meant to be a short story, but feels very unfinished. It feel like the reader jumps from one concept to another with parts of the story burned away in between. It is a gothic exercise that i could love to see the author form into a larger work. I want to know more about the Atrocites. Why do they exist? If the house was once a church, why is everything so morbid. What happened to the Evers ,and what happened to Valdez. Plus Robin is a bit fascinating. I picture her like a mix between Rosie the Robot, and Mrs. Piglewiggle. She is perfectly happy in a house of horrors. Is she a participant, or just oblivious?

I still can not quite say what I think of this story. Do i like it? Do I not? It’s somewhere in between. I am left with too many questions to fully form an opinion. ( )

This novella is a tightly told horror story. Ms. Valdez is hired as a private teacher for Isabella. She journeys to an labyrinthine estate adorned with grotesque statues and painting, where she learns that the young girl she is supposed to teach is dead and a ghost. As Ms. Valdez begins to uncover the truth about this strange family, she faces the hauntings of her own past. Great story. ( )

The spooky house and governess heroine made me think this was a historical story at first, but it's actually contemporary-set. Danna has been hired to teach Mr. and Mrs. Evers' young daughter, Isabella. The Evers' home, Stockton House, is an odd place. It used to be a church, and in order to get to it, it's necessary to walk through a labyrinth populated by the Atrocities, statues depicting horrific violence and suffering. Stockton House's interior is no better - every wall and nook and cranny has something grotesque and unsettling on/in it.

Danna has her own horrors to deal with. At times, she slides into what she calls her "hospital dreams," vivid and twisted nightmares that feel terrifyingly real. She tries to focus on the job at hand, teaching Isabella, but it soon becomes clear that there's a lot the Evers didn't tell her about themselves and their daughter.

This had a feel to it that reminded me a lot of the game Fran Bow. Danna's "hospital dreams" were about as horrifying as Fran's visions when she took her pills, and The Atrocities and Fran Bow both had startlingly sudden endings that were open to interpretation.

However, whereas Fran Bow took its time, letting players gradually get to know Fran and the horrors she and others went through prior to the game's beginning, The Atrocities felt like it barely scratched the surface where Danna was concerned. Readers knew she'd once been married, that she had a son who'd died, and that she had a cousin who tried to keep her spirits up by texting her cute pictures on a daily basis. That's pretty much it. Danna's hospital dreams were never really addressed. Did anyone other than her know about them?

The novella's ambiguous ending frustrated me. Taken at face value, it was a "good" ending. Danna's sometimes shaky grasp on reality made me wonder, however, whether her experiences at the end were real, or just something she'd cobbled together to reassure herself. Readers who like this sort of ambiguity may enjoy this, but I wanted something a little more solid.

I loved the overall atmosphere, and the mystery of the Evers family intrigued me. Unfortunately, the ending was a disappointment.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Curiouser and curiouser. Danna didn't fall down a rabbit hole, nor did she follow a rabbit, but she did answer an add to be a teacher. She did have to find her way through s strange maze, full of extremely strange and gruesome statues, to arrive at the house. There were no rrsbbits but there were rats that seemed alive one minute, and the next plastic. Her student wasn't from Wonderland, but maybe somewhere else just as strange if not stranger. There was no Queen of hearts but there was a man who thought he was king of all. She didn't lose her head, but almost lost something more valuable.

Seriously what did I just read? Gothic horror where nothing is as it seems. Mind bending, but a quick and different read. ( )