The moral of this book is that toxic masculinity is bad. A message that you're kinda beaten over the head with (well, if not you, almost quite literally to some characters in this book). In the shadows I think there lurked some feminism, but that might just be these angry, feminist-colored glasses I've been wearing lately.

I guess this is technically a haunted house book, much like you could call The Overlook hotel a haunted hotel. It wasn't really the house that was haunted but the creatures/spirits/deities in it, and together they shaped the house/hotel, making it alive and a character itself.

Also, I need to not read Nick Cutter books while on my lunch break. +100 points for many scenes making me go on an unintentional diet because I didn't feel like finishing my lunch a couple times. -200 points for the gruesome, horrible turtle death. Why Nick? Why do you hate turtles so much??? (LOL, I'm glad you addressed this in your author's note).

I've never read Andrew F Sullivan before, the co-author of this book, so I wonder how he is on his own.

Anyway, lots of body horror, kinda cringey, heavy-handed on the toxic masculinity, not enough depth to some of the characters.