There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

You may be surprised to find out that Stephanie Perkins, author of Anna and the French Kiss and other titles, is a HUGE horror fan. Yep, she is. I know because I follow her 31 Days of Horror posts each Halloween! (If you don't know, it's a challenge where you watch a horror movie each day during the month of October.) So yeah, she's a horror fan. And she's making her YA horror debut this week with There's Someone Inside Your House!

Makani moved to Osborne to get away from drama. Unfortunately, tiny Osborne, Nebraska is anything but drama free. Dropped in her grandmother's lap by parents who seem to have little interest these days, Makani has managed to make two good friends and carve out a little niche for herself at her new school. And while the actions of her past haunt her, her biggest worries are a. that her new friends will find out why she moved and b. that the boy that blew her off will continue to do so. 

That is, until someone starts killing her classmates!

As the town faces one murder after another, rumors about suspects begin to swirl around Makani's school. And with no idea who the killer is or how to stop them, everyone is afraid of being the next target. 

So of course Makani and her friends take it upon themselves to try and solve the murders. In true YA horror fashion. But that's in part because of the rumor mill and an attempt to ensure that Makani and her new friends stay off the suspect list as much as it is to make sure they aren't the next victims.

Their efforts are ratcheted up when someone close to them becomes a victim and people do in fact turn their eye in the group's way looking for suspects, as you'd expect.

Perkins's first horror attempt is, for the most part, successful. The stakes are high as is the suspense. The character building is pretty on point too, though I thought the build up to Makani's big reveal might have been just a touch overblown by the time we find out her real story. Admittedly, any drama as a teen is BIG DRAMA, though, so I thought it was aptly handled and true to the character's age.

If I have one beef with There's Someone Inside Your House, though, it's the fact that the killer is actually revealed halfway through. The story then becomes more about hunting this person down rather than the mystery of who the killer is, which took a bit of steam and tension out of the story for me.

And yet, There's Someone Inside Your House still made for a super fun read that brought me back to my Fear Street days!