Genre: Killer/Slasher
Blurb:
| A seasoned invader with multiple home invasions under their belt recounts their dark victories while offering tutelage to a new generation of ambitious home invaders eager to make their mark on the annals of criminal history. From initial canvasing to home entry, the reader is complicit in every strangling and shattered window. The fear is inescapable. Examining the sanctuary of the home and one of the horror genre's most frightening tropes, Anybody Home? points the camera lens onto the quiet suburbs and its unsuspecting abodes, any of which are potential stages for an invader ambitious enough to make it the scene of the next big crime sensation. Who knows? Their performance just might make it to the silver screen. |
No one in the story is named, instead they’re faceless
characters given identifiers like “Victim #1” and “Invader #2.” Victim #1 is a
father and husband, and he’s terrible at both. Victim #2 is the depressed wife
and mother. Victim #3 is the naïve daughter who is too young to recognize the
misery and apathy that plagues her family. Victim #4 is the angsty teenage son,
who hates his parents and everything else. You view the victims as little more
than players in your twisted game of psychological and physical torture. They
each have their stereotypical role to play, and the cameras are recording
everything.
The idea of a more experienced killer teaching a newbie the
ins-and-outs of a home invasion/murder spree is interesting, and the book is
well written although I wish less time was spent on the set up and more was
spent on the suspenseful parts, namely the stalking and torture of the family.
The action doesn’t even start until about halfway in. Instead, we have to
follow a step-by-step guide for stalking potential victims for the first half
of the book. Maybe it’s just because I struggle with lists of instructions in
general but I found this part very dull. But there’s no denying the story is
well written and once you get past the less exciting first half the plot starts
to pick up and things get good. It’s
incredibly suspenseful watching as the family is stalked and terrorized,
knowing the invaders have planned for every eventuality but still hoping they
victims might survive. Or maybe you side with the invaders. You are one of
them, after all. In which case the tension comes from wondering whether you can
pull off such a grand scheme, especially when one of your invaders is getting
cold feet.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. The torture scenes will leave you squirming and wondering what horror will be inflicted next upon this poor unlikely family. It’s incredibly uncomfortable to read, and more uncomfortable still when you realize you’re meant to be the one gleefully carrying out the torture, animal killing, child murder, rape, and all other manner of other unpleasant things. Admittedly, I almost gave up on it when I was a third of the way through because nothing stimulating was happening (because I have a short attention span). But I’m glad I stuck it out because that ending was like a punch in the gut.
