"I am bad and I am not worth saving."

There's no way I can do this book justice. It feels more like real life than any other book I've read. It's like if Danez Smith wrote a novel.

This was pitched to me as "three Black siblings return home to the gated community they grew up in after their haunted childhood home kills their parents" and "a non-standard haunted house story about the legacy of racism" and it's so much more than that. Our protagonist Ezri is a genderqueer fat Black Jewish parent with diabetes and multiple cluster-B personality disorders. Every one of their family members sits at the intersection of many states of being and it makes them all feel so much more real to me. I have met these people. I am these people. This is a book about the weight and pain of legacy: not just anti-Blackness, or transphobia, or homophobia, or family abuse, or sexual abuse of children by adults, but also how our parents are ghosts that live inside of us like how their parents lived inside of them. And then the final 10% recontextualizes everything that happened before in such a way that I immediately wanted to start over from the beginning again. Also wasn't expecting this book to step on old dyslexia trauma from school, OOF.

"I am the Omelas child."

If you have the SLIGHTEST interest in what I'm saying, just grab a copy. I'm going to need to buy my own after this because an audiobook is not conductive to writing quotes down. (Sidenote: the narration is execellent.) 

I’m not into slasher horror. I’m more of a mind fuck horror type of reader. And I am deeply DEEPLY disturbed by this book in the best way.

A black family moves into white suburbia. Into a haunted house.

Now, the children are adults and discover their parents the victims of what looks to the police like a murder-suicide. But the siblings know different. They know it was the house that killed their parents. And it’s not letting go of them either.

I knew throughout the book that everything wasn’t as it seemed. It was never supposed to be. The air of mystery and the Easter eggs left throughout the plot were obviously leading somewhere. But definitely not where I expected. It’s so hard to surprise me with a plot twist, my pattern recognition picks it up every time, but I was FLABBERGASTED. 

I’m a big Rivers Solomon fan already, but this one is their best yet!!! The way that they discuss systemic racism and queerness in such an insightful way that fits perfectly into the plot is  unmatched. If you’re a horror fan, be warned that this book has so many triggers, but it is an absolute must read!

Contemplating turning back to page one and reading this again. I started this book and from page one knew this was going to be a 5 star read for me, a rare experience for me. The writing is so good, I wanted to stop and highlight but just kept wanting to turn the page to find out what was happening. I'm looking forward to a reread. Unsettling, horrific, poetic, and heartbreaking. 

As with most horror/thriller I think the less you know going in the better, but it is good to be aware this book has some heavy themes of child abuse, grooming, pedophilia, sexual abuse, racism/racist acts, animal cruelty/death. Many of these are themes I generally avoid in fiction, but I trusted Rivers Solomon with the subject matter and they are all handled with great care in this book and most are referenced rather then graphically depicted, although it is horror, I think this could be good for someone who doesn't read a lot of horror/doesn't like a lot of graphic horror. 

Thanks to net galley and the publisher for an e-arc!

I had a very long well thought out review for this and then I accidentally deleted it...

In summary though this book takes they haunted house story and brings so much more to it. It wasn't what I expected going in but really it was better. It's a very heavy and intense read. I also loved the unusual writing style which really fit this book. It won't be for everyone but I thought it was great. 

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc. 

Note: Please check trigger warnings before reading this book. 

Rivers Solomon does it again! 
Model Home is a deeply unsettling and twisted tale about generational trauma, violence, racism, gentrification, and the way it shapes an individual.

Ezri's mother Eudora has dreams of building the perfect home with the perfect family and will stop at nothing to get it. Finally, it seems she has reached the top when their family moves into 677, a large model home in a gated white community in Dallas. Soon after, strange things begin to happen. 

Years later, now grown, Ezri is called back to 677 when tragedy strikes again. They, along with their sisters, are finally forced to confront the traumas they've endured, and the secrets that lie within the walls of their family home. 

Rivers is a master at crafting gory, horrific, tales with one of a kind characters that are as interesting as they are flawed. I deeply love the characters Rivers creates and the representation they take on. This author does not shy away from the uncomfortable realities that is the human experience.

Model Home is creepy, dark, and unforgiving , with passages that will turn your stomach and leave you wondering what you've just read.
The ending was one I did not see coming and truly left me haunted. 

4.25 stars

Thank you to Farrar, Straus, & Giroux + NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“Mother forgot her own advice. She’d told me that white supremacy operates under a logic in which everything whiteness does can be rationalized as good, and everything Blackness does can be rationalized as preternaturally evil.”

“Against the house, I am nothing. I drag the flat palm of my hand along the doorframe. The rigid bumps of texture give the impression of bone. The glassy silk—slightly sticky with age—of the finish reminds me of veneer. I put my hand on the knob. Cool. A tiny skull.”

“The only easy intimacy I’ve ever had in this life is with my sisters. Only when I’m touching them can I convince myself my hands are not blades.”

The Maxwell Washingtons, a Black family from Brooklyn, move into a large home in Texas, surrounded on all sides by white, rich neighbors in their HOA neighborhood. They are an unwelcome addition and the neighbors make it known continuously. All 3 siblings, Ezri, Eve, and Emanuelle, have been estranged for sometime from their parents due to being traumatized from their home and their childhoods before finding their parents dead in the backyard.

Ezri is nonbinary, autistic Black person with diabetes and there are moments of inner dialogue where Ezri discusses all of these aspects about themselves. Elijah is also autistic + diabetic, and both of them actively check and monitor their insulin throughout the book. I really appreciated seeing this amount of representation in a book. There are also plenty of moments where Ezri’s sisters correct others of Ezri’s pronouns and calling them a siblings instead of sister/brother. I also loved moments where other family members where aware of insulin levels dropping and helping to take care of Ezri in those moments. 

This story was so brilliantly haunting, strange, and engrossing. Through the prose and plot, I was trying to figure out how the story would end up until they entered the house for the last time. 

There is such a blunt obviousness to what occurred at 677, but Solomon continues to keep the reader guessing due to Ezri being somewhat of an unreliable narrator—not trusting their own mind and thoughts to be true. Solomon does an incredible job of using every single word on every single page to consume you into feeling just as suffocated, terrified, and confused as Ezri feels. There are constant themes of racism, white supremacy, and intergenerational trauma at play and their affects on the entire family. 

Finding out the truth was like slowly unraveling everything Ezri knew to be true, to keep them sane enough to stay alive and take care of themselves and Elijah, their daughter. I am now appreciating the ending a bit more as I am reflecting on it. I won’t say spoilers. But the way that it ends, in a way, is full circle moment from how their parents handled the realization of their past and how Ezri is choosing to continue on in a very similar situation.

This book deals with some heavy topics, and it should be read with care. 

CW: racism, homophobia, transphobia, pedophilia, sexual content, death/death of a parent, mental illness, grooming, sexual abuse, violence

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! Model Home releases from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux on October 1st, 2024 in the US.

Rivers Solomon's Model Home is a master class in literary horror, exploring intergenerational trauma, race, queerness, and survival, framed within the confines of a suburban model home that serves as both literal and figurative battleground. This novel invites readers into the haunted life of Ezri Maxwell, a fat, genderqueer protagonist grappling with the horrors of their childhood home after the sudden deaths of both of their parents. Through Ezri’s journey, Solomon weaves a narrative that transcends the conventional boundaries of genre, offering a raw and daring portrayal of queer identity, intergenerational trauma, and the quest for healing.

From the start, Solomon subverts the traditional haunted house trope by transforming the Maxwell family’s suburban mansion into a symbol of inherited trauma and racial violence. The house itself, nestled in a predominantly white, gated community outside Dallas, becomes a suffocating metaphor for the structures of racism, segregation, and abuse that have shaped Ezri’s life. As Ezri returns to this childhood home with their sisters Eve and Emanuelle, they confront not only literal ghosts but the deeper, more insidious hauntings of secrets and unresolved pain. Solomon uses the setting to highlight the false promises of suburban utopia, exposing the violent undercurrents of a society built on racism and white supremacy.

At the heart of the novel lies Ezri’s emotional journey. They are both tender and hardened by the traumas they have endured, making their emotional turmoil palpable throughout the story. Solomon masterfully portrays Ezri’s struggle to navigate their gender identity, their body, and the burden of their family’s expectations. Ezri’s battle with dissociation and their need to unlearn the binary constraints of gender and self-worth are rendered with raw, visceral clarity. As Ezri grapples with the ghosts of their past, they are forced to confront the painful truths that lie at the heart of their own identity—a journey that is as harrowing as it is ultimately liberating.

The prose in Model Home mirrors the themes it tackles—fragmented, lyrical, and deeply unsettling. Solomon’s use of rich metaphor brings the house and its walls to life, anthropomorphizing them into symbols of the oppression that Ezri cannot seem to escape. The novel wrestles with the contradictions of survival—how to carry on in a world that both demands and denies one's existence. Ezri’s story is not one of sweeping salvation but of incremental triumphs, of surviving even when healing feels out of reach.

In Model Home, Solomon offers no easy answers, but instead, a meditation on survival and the small victories won in the face of trauma and oppression. This novel is as much about family bonds as it is about the secrets that erode them. It is a testament to resilience, queerness, and the fight to carve out a space for oneself in a world that seeks to diminish and erase. Solomon’s portrayal of trauma is brutal, but their vision of survival is equally powerful, forcing readers to confront the ghosts that haunt both the book’s characters and our world. Like Solomon’s previous works, Model Home is a book that demands not to be just read, but felt. Thank you, Rivers, for another searingly brilliant book. I can’t wait for the next one.

Content Note: Readers should be aware that while the sexual assault scenes are very mild, not very descriptive, and mostly implied, that childhood sexual assault ultimately serves as a key plot point.

Both Ezri and their daughter are groomed and assaulted by adult white women.

This is a poignant and critical antiracist critique, but it may be triggering for some readers.

📖 Recommended For: Fans of literary horror, readers who appreciate explorations of intergenerational trauma and queer identity, anti-racist advocates, lovers of Carmen Maria Machado and Octavia Butler.

🔑 Key Themes: Intergenerational Trauma, Queerness and Gender Identity, Racial Violence and Suburban Politics, Survival and Resilience, Family Secrets and Healing.