Review: Alone by Cyn Balog

Title: Alone

Author: Cyn Balog

Genre: YA, horror, mystery thriller

Publication date: November 2017

Published by: Sourcebooks Fire

Source: eARC from publisher via Netgalley

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Synopsis: When her mom inherits an old, crumbling mansion, Seda’s almost excited to spend the summer there. The grounds are beautiful and it’s fun to explore the sprawling house with its creepy rooms and secret passages. Except now her mom wants to renovate, rather than sell the estate—which means they're not going back to the city... or Seda's friends and school.

As the days grow shorter, Seda is filled with dread. They’re about to be cut off from the outside world, and she’s not sure she can handle the solitude or the darkness it brings out in her.

Then a group of teens get stranded near the mansion during a blizzard. Seda has no choice but to offer them shelter, even though she knows danger lurks in the dilapidated mansion—and in herself. And as the snow continues to fall, what Seda fears most is about to become her reality...

My rating: ★★★☆☆

I really loved the premise of this book, what with its potential ghost story. And I ended up really enjoying the ride and the atmosphere. But that ending... um, yikes 😬

So this house they’re fixing up sounds really cool. It has a lot of themed rooms and it’s just really spooky. I loved it! Seda’s family actually inherited it from a relative recently and they’re fixing it up to sell it.

Despite the morbid stories about this place, I don't ever worry about ghosts. After all, I have Sawyer, and he is worse.

Seda and her family are used to spooky things. But the one thing Seda does worry about is her dead twin brother. He was stillborn be he stuck around as an imaginary friend for years. But now he’s more sadistic. Of course, it’s all in her head. But then weird things start to happen around her new home when a group of kids wind up there after being stranded in a snowstorm. Seda starts to worry whether Sawyer is influencing her somehow... or if he isn’t just in her head 😳 I really liked this concept of this evil brother who is bitter because she’s the one who is alive and maybe he’s trying to take her over.

Seda has more siblings, two sets of twins, all very young but all super cute. I loved that the little ones are just completely unfazed by all the horror stuff around the house. It’s so funny! So in order to pass time during the storm, the mom sets up a scavenger hunt around the house for all the kids... but then things start happening. And let’s talk about said things because things get good and then they get bad and then good again???

During the storm, a bunch of high school kids show up after being stranded, and they join in on the scavenger hunt. But then the kids start dropping dead one by one and Seda can’t find her mom. Eventually she and Heath (one of those kids) stumble upon a room that seemed to be lived in in the wing of the house that was off limits. It turns out that that wing wasn’t off limits because there was construction going on and it was dangerous, as her mom said, but because SAWYER had been sent to live with these relatives a long time ago and he was living in this wing!! 😱 But guess what, he murdered the relatives and is now killing the kids too!! OMG! He was real after all! I was really excited about this! I liked the direction this was going! But don’t get too excited like I did because he actually wasn't ever alive. Sigh 😒

At the end of the book we find out that these kids aren’t actually dead. They were HIRED by Seda’s mom as ACTORS for this whole scavenger hunt thing. And while Seda DID have a twin in the womb, he was never alive enough to do any murdering. All the evidence that she found was planted by her MOTHER. Her mom remembered how Seda would talk about her brother when she was little like he was alive, so she took that and incorporated it into her little game. Honestly, I can’t believe she did that. She doesn't know the things Seda has to deal with, how her inner Sawyer always tormented her. All of this was just really inconsiderate on her mother’s part, even though she herself thought it would be fun. It wasn’t. The poor girl was seriously scared out of her ever loving mind thinking her serial killer brother was out to get them all!! But no. Her mom was basically like, “It’s just a prank bro.” 🙃 I HATED this twist! Hated it!

What’s even worse is that I really liked Heath Hunter. He was really funny and so sweet! But get this: all these kids, they’re SENIORS in freaking COLLEGE. SENIORS! And Heath kissed Seda!! Who is a teenager!! And her mom was fine with it all!! Not. Okay. NOT OKAY! Omg. I just can’t with this 😤 I felt so bad for Seda... the poor girl... whose inner Sawyer is VERY real to her.

Luckily for me, who was hating every bit of this book by this point, it didn’t end there. Oh no...

I’m hungry.
I know you are, I tell my brother in the voice only he can hear, patting my stomach gently.

YES! This gave me hope that she’s gonna retaliate using Sawyer. Do they deserve to die for this? I mean, probably not. But it WAS cruel and the ending infuriated me soooo I very much like where this was heading. Just saying 😉 We don’t see any killings, but it is heavily implied that this was gonna happen after the book ends. After all, when Seda found out about the actor thing, she deliberately left Heath stuck in a freezer. Not to mention that she killed her dad... or maybe it was Sawyer using her? I don’t know, but the point is it can happen, and I am more than okay with it 😈

I had very mixed feelings about this book. I loved the setting and the creepy vibes plus the whole thing with Sawyer and whether he was real or not and if he was influencing Seda or not... I loved all that! I loved the first plot twist regarding Seda’s brother, but then the second plot twist came around and it made me mad. I hated it! The very, very end though, gives me hope, so this wasn’t a complete fail.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊