From the moment Lacey sees the dilapidated house, she is hooked.  She has to have it.  She can picture her and Eric's future family inside the house.  Everything seems perfect.  Except, in true haunted house story fashion, it's not.  Eric and Lacey move into the house but they aren't quite alone.  There is a mysterious boy named Drew who not only shows up unannounced, he can have quite the temper tantrum.  

 

The book moves along quickly and Condit has a great "voice" in the book.  The characters are likable but flawed and I, as a reader, felt as though I really "knew" them by the end of the book.  Sometimes I loved Lacey and Eric, and other times I wanted to throttle them.  Much like family.  

 

For awhile I had difficulty understanding how the seemingly unconnected story arc with Lex and his estranged wife/daughter fit into the story but never fear - all of the loose ends are pretty well tied up as the story closes.  I read some reviews that compare this book with Joe Hill's "Heart Shaped Box" and I can see why the comparisons are made. I, personally, loved the Hill novel and really enjoyed "Starter House".  I look forward to many more books from the talented Condit.

I selected this book because the synopsis intrigued me and I remember reading "The House Next Door" by Anne Rivers Siddons and "The Shining" by Stephen King as a teenager and being freaked out for days after finishing those books. "Starter House" had a great premise and started off very strong but I ended up not caring at all for the ending or main characters which makes it hard to rate this novel above two stars.

The plot revolves around a married couple, Lacey and Eric who are looking to buy their first home. Lacey and Eric are expecting a baby and she wants to be settled in a house before the baby is born. They come across a home that needs work but promptly buy it since Lacey is so intrigued and feels an instant connection to the house. After moving in the couple start interacting with a little boy who comes out of nowhere who starts causing problems around the house.

I thought the set-up was very good. Ms. Condit has a way with words and I have to say that she managed to grip me almost immediately as I started reading this book. However, I didn't feel scared or uneasy as I did while reading Mr. King's and Ms. Siddon's novels. I think if you are going to write a ghost story it doesn't have to be all bloodshed and mayhem but there at least should be some scary moments included in it or something that makes you afraid for the main protagonists.

Also the way that the characters Eric and Lacey were written did not make me want to root for them to get out of harm's way. As it was Eric was an non-entity throughout the novel and I couldn't warm up to Lacey.

Finally, about halfway through I found myself getting bored with the story. One reason why I liked "The Shining" and "The House Next Door" was because there was a central mystery involved with the house/hotel in those stories that you were given clues to along with the main protagonists. Withthis novel I just found myself not really caring why anything was happening to Lacey or Eric and just wanted to get to the end.

Would only recommend if you like your ghost stories to be non-threatening.

Please note that I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program

By the time I had read only two pages I hated the two main characters, Lacey and her husband Eric. He seemed like a jerk and she was just plain annoying. I kept reading the book to see if they changed any. At first they didn't, but then slowly I began to like Lacey and feel sorry for her. Pretty much I ended up not liking most of the characters when they were first introduced but then grew to really like some of them (especially Lacey's mother).

 

This book isn't really a haunting of a house yet a haunting of the family that lives in the house. This book could get a bit spooky at times and I ended up reading a majority of it at night so I was freaking out from time to time. I thought the twist at the end about the haunting was good and was definitely a surprise.

 

There were times when I felt that I wanted to give up on this book (mostly because of my annoyance with the charcters) but I stuck with it and am really glad that I did. This was a really good debut by Sonja Condit and I would be interested in reading any of her future work.

 

(I received this book from a Librarything Early Reviewers giveaway. The content of my review is not affected by that in any way.)

I've read only two pages of this so far and already I don't like the two main characters, Lacey and her husband Eric. They are currently house-hunting and by god are they annoying. She wants triangles, yes triangles, and he wants a safe area in a circle of area twenty minutes from work. I'm sure their realtor wants to slap them. Well I'll continue on and hope my feelings towards them get better, after all it is only the second page.

Starter House is more sad than terrifying. This is due to the tragedy that occurred within the house as much as it is to Lacey’s overwhelming desire for her own idea of the perfect marriage. That she has lasting issues from her nomadic childhood is obvious from the very beginning and tinge a reader’s compassion for her. All this means is that a reader feels less impact by the events occurring within the house than they probably should feel.

The tragedy Lacey eventually uncovers is horrifying and yet profoundly upsetting in that one can easily imagine something similar occurring every single day. Its ordinariness is the most shocking aspect, and therein lies the terror. Unfortunately, by the time readers discover the tragedy, the story is already rushing at a frantic pace. One does not get the chance to adequately absorb the truth but is swept along to the story’s frenetic conclusion. The rushed ending is a tremendous disappointment given the slowly-building tension that occurs during the first two-thirds of the novel.

Any good horror story hinges on a reader’s connection to the main character. Sympathy with him or her makes the unexplained happenings more powerful and the terror more real. Unfortunately, Lacey is not the most likable of characters. She professes a strong backbone due to her refusal to subject her child to something like her own childhood, and yet that strong backbone does not exist through much of the novel. She capitulates to her husband’s and to her mother’s whims so easily that it is difficult to not describe her as weak. Her compassion feels misplaced at times, as she devotes almost all of her attention to the mysterious Drew, something that inexplicably occurs from the very first time she sees him. Then there is her almost narcissistic attitude about her teaching abilities. Her inward focus on her ability to calm her “noisy boys” and her view that Drew is just another one of those boys is a bit self-congratulatory and egotistical, not endearing traits of any sort.

While the truth behind Drew’s appearance is horrifying, one cannot help but feel that Ms. Condit missed the true terror of the book. There are psychological implications behind Lacey’s marriage, her relationship with her mother, her teaching – basically her entire adulthood – that Ms. Condit ignores in favor of a murder mystery with ghostly implications. Sadly, the manufactured ghosts are not as powerful as those that already exist in Lacey’s past, highlighting yet another of the story’s weaknesses.

The lack of sympathetic characters, the rushed ending, and the missed opportunity to explore more of the psychology of the story and less of the supernatural elements makes Starter House mostly a disappointment. One cannot help but identify the missed opportunities as well as the potential the story has had it gone in a different arc. The fact that it does show potential makes one hope that as Ms. Condit matures as a writer, she will recognize the same opportunities and improve upon her current weaknesses. If she does, one can expect great things from her. Whether she does remains to be seen.