I stalk my friends on Goodreads, and that’s how I noticed Starling House by Alix E. Harrow.

Okay, context. My reading fam enjoys vastly different genres. One of them might review a book as ‘5-stars-heart-emoji-squee!!!!!!’ while another might give the same book 1 star or a hard Did Not Finish (DNF). Since the start of my ‘give me all the books, now’ reading spree, I’ve been looking extra hard at my friends’ bookish activity. So, as I received my daily emails from Goodreads (this is where the stalking happens), I picked up on a trend.

Starling House popped up in a ‘currently reading’ and received 5 stars a few days later. Popped up again a week or so later, and received another 5-star rating the next day. Popped up, sooner this time, 5 stars. Friends who usually read light and fluffy chic lit? 5 stars. Friends who usually read political dramas? 5 stars. Friends who read only paranormal romance? Five. Stars.

I’ve never, and I mean never, come across a book that every one of them have read and loved. Never.

Until Starling House.

So, I had to read it, too. Peer pressure made me do it. 🤣

Before we get to the official review, a disclaimer. All the opinions shared in this post are my own, are honest, and I’m not compensated in any way for expressing them.

The Blurb

A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can’t stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland―and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

Spice Level

Characters

Starling House features only a handful of characters: 

• Opal
• Arthur
• Jasper
• The house
• Eleanor Starling
• Elizabeth Baine
• Bev
• Charlotte

Others are mentioned, like Opal’s mother and Jasper’s friend, but it’s still a short list.

Most of the novel is narrated in Opal’s voice (first POV), but Arthur takes us through some scenes (third POV).

Opal is a high school dropout who will do anything to send her gifted younger brother, Jasper, to a private school. She’s cynical, jaded, and never asks for help—which is totally understandable. Her mother passed away young, leaving Opal as Jasper’s single parent since she was a teenager.

She’s also obsessed with a creepy children’s story called The Underland, written by the original owner of the super famous Starling House (Eleanor Starling).

At first, Opal seems hard and angry at the world, but her bleeding heart soon shows. She’s a good person trying to make the most of a bad hand.

Arthur is similarly misunderstood. He, too, is a good person trying to make the most of a bad hand, even though he’s even worse at showing it than Opal.

The house is so integral to the story that it becomes its own character, with moods and ideas of its own. Imagine Encanto, but in an Oscar Wilde kind of setting.

I didn’t like that it’s constantly hammered upon that Arthur isn’t a looker. We get it. People are attracted to different physical aspects, and Opal doesn’t find Arthur good-looking. Until she does? His looks have no bearing upon the overall plot, so I don’t see the importance of hitting the reader over the head with his appearance. If it was just a ploy to break the normal ‘oh holy wow, he’s hot’ trope of romance novels, mentioning his beak-nose once or twice would’ve done the deed.

Additionally, I didn’t feel the growing love between Opal and Arthur. One moment, she still sees him as the grumpy, unattractive owner of the house, and the next she’s all in with him. The romance seemed underdeveloped, but only from her side. I swear, we get more of the googly eyes in the few scenes narrated by Arthur, and he’s actively trying to keep her off his property.

Plot

I’ll be the first to admit the plot unfurls slowly. I reached a moment where Opal reads a Wiki page entry set in the world (complete with footnotes and sources—I kid you not) and I didn’t think I’d finish the novel. I was bored and frustrated with random slivers of backstory that didn’t yet make sense.

But then the pace amps up. We discover a factoid that suddenly connects those random elements in the backstory. The pace amps up again. We learn something about Opal or Arthur and we relate to them a smidge more. Then we’re rooting for them. Then we make more connections that turn plot threads into an intricate spider’s web. Eleanor Starling did what?! And then we can’t put down the damn book.

It happened so fast, that I still have whiplash.

As we discover more about the house, Arthur, Opal’s past, and Eleanor Starling, it becomes clear that there’s a lot more going on in this tiny American town than anyone could guess.

Now, this might be an unpopular opinion. Maybe it’s just me? But the story kind of fell flat around the ¾ mark. I didn’t like some of the developments, and the antagonists were a tad meh. Also, the blurb uses words like haunted, sinister, and literal nightmares, but this book isn’t scary. It’s weird, sure. Quirky, you bet. Scary? Not even a little.

I was torn between four and five stars by the end of it.

What ultimately made up my mind is simple. The story stuck with me for days after I finished reading. I couldn’t stop thinking about some of the events—even the ones I didn’t necessarily like. I’d be reading or doing something else, then suddenly remember something from Starling House and make another connection. And if that isn’t the hallmark of a good book, I don’t know what is. It stays in the back-brain, with lines of beautiful prose that demand remembrance.

This one is somewhere between 4.75 and 5 stars for me, recommended to readers who enjoy the not-so-clear-cut plots of the world.

Have you read Starling House? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Until next time.

Yolandie