After reading the premise of this book and finding out who was the narrator-Mara Wilson, the Matilda-I was like, oh yeah, have to read this. I was...a little underwhelmed by it, but I still thought it was a good book. I liked that we as the readers were just as confused as Rose in the beginning as we were learning things with her. I always enjoy when the author has a learning as the MC learns. With that in mind, the beginning to middle of this book, DRAGGED! Like tremendously. Multiple times did I almost DNF this book because it was so slow. As I said, I do like learning with the MC but this was just so much of the MC monologuing about her life and talking with her parents.
I found it so interesting that when she started to remember her old life or more specifically when she started to question what was going on in her current life was when the mayflies started to come out of her. It was interesting to show the parents dynamic with Rose as, before we found out everything, you could see they actually loved her, in their own way. Though once she visited the "doctor" after her friend died-which was incredibly glazed over in my opinion-it became INCREASINGLY obvious that she was an "ex-gay" and everyone around her knew way more than they were saying.
I liked her friend Saul (idk if that's how it's spelled because I listened to the book) but I agreed with Rose in finding his faith off pudding. Though I have met many a people who are queer and have some form of Christian faith. I just cannot imagine going through all that and wanting to believe in someone or something that would allow a literal demon being attached to you with no intervention. But that's just me. I thought about the demons being from the 9th circle when she killed the one in her car and was so gratified when it was proven correct.
I felt the last few chapters are what made the book so much more interesting. I was so glad that when she freed the demons from their literal shackles, they attacked the pastor and the camp counselors, it felt gratifying. I felt like the story as a whole could've had more, or just could've picked up the pace a lot sooner than the last few chapters. As a queer person who grew up in religion, the worry and fear that comes with the "love" that is given to those who go against the norm is never wanted and rarely written about in such an interesting way. The concept of the story was a 10/10 but the execution didn't land as much as I hoped it would. Would I say this was a horror book, no. At least not in the traditional sense but for sure the nightmare of all LGBT people who grew up in religious households, but even then not horror. I enjoyed it for what it was but it was more like a 2.75/5 for me.