I'm gonna be king of the pirates!

a few hours after midnight on January 1st I had the offhanded thought "huh, I'd like to read more..." so basically this is me trying to encourage that habit. I've just finished my first book of the new year!

Ezri, who hasn't spoken to their mother in years, is called back home to their parents' idyllic suburban Dallas mansion following a series of concerning texts. Throughout the course of the book they, and their two sisters Eve and Emanuelle, will have to confront the traumatic memories of their childhood in a house that they have all determined to be terribly haunted - though the reality of what happened at 677 Acacia Drive is a bit more complicated than that.

I was gripped from the start, both because it's haunted house related AND set in Dallas, Texas. growing up in that area, I had a strange familiarity with the events of the book in a way that made it so much more immersive. I could see the interior of the airport the characters stood in, I knew the look of the streets they drove down, the heat of the summer sun. I was also deeply compelled by the exploration of Black identities in the racist infrastructures of American suburbia. The book doesn't shy away from the constant low-level (and sometimes straight up blatant and high-level) stream of discrimination and exclusion that Black people face to this day in predominantly white spaces.

Okay, some spoilers ahead, time for my detailed review!!

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