Review of May the Dead Keep You
Blurb: There’s nowhere Catie East would rather be than the redwood forest that surrounds her family’s unusual historic home, the Heights.
She prefers being alone in the forest. People are…complicated. But when a scientist and his son move into the estate’s cottage, planning to study the woods around them, the boy catches Catie’s eye. And when a dead woodpecker miraculously comes back to life in his precious hands…he captures her heart.
Necromancy isn’t the only strange thing happening in the Heights. There’s an unfamiliar face in the mirror. Blood on the floors. Eyes in the wallpaper. And the men around her—including her once-sweet nature boy—are becoming something else. Something possessive and frightening. Something violent.
As the Heights’s dark history starts to come to light, Catie discovers that the home she loves is imbued with pain. And even though the pain isn’t her own, it will corrupt her and the people around her all the same—unless she can stop it.
Review: Catie East is happiest when she's at home in her family's strange house, the Heights, and her redwood forest. Her mother and best friend encourage her to get out more, spend time with more people, so when a scientist and his son who she knew as a child come to stay in the estate's cottage, she takes the chance to get to know Hunter. He's odd like her, and she starts to like him. Then when a woodpecker dies after crashing through a window, they touch it together and bring it back to life. Yet stranger things are happening in the house. Catie's brother is acting weird, no longer fun and kind but cruel and violent. The Heights' dark history takes a hold of them and won't let go until all of them are dead.
This was a beautifully written YA gothic horror. The gorgeous cover caught my attention, and I picked it up at the library without knowing anything else about it. I've never heard of this author, and I'm usually not a fan of YA books because I don't like teenage angst. There is teen angst going on, but it was just a small current in the torrential river. There was a lot going on with friends and family, and the mystery of what happened to the former owner's daughter and where Catie's father had disappeared to.
There are a lot of big issues tackled in this: abusive relationships, generational trauma, corruption, betrayal, and classism. The author had something to say, and it was done nicely. Be aware it is the wives and the daughters being abused. Abusive fathers, brothers, husbands, and boyfriends. The ghost of the former owner of the house possesses guys and makes them hideously abusive. It is one of the issues I had with this book. Catie starts falling for Hunter who moves into the cottage. Right off, he's a red flag, and it's not because of the haunting. It was tough to read as their relationship grew, because I could see he's not good for her, but she was falling for him.
Also, the necromancy part is just a small bit to the story, and it is never explained. It has nothing to do with the Heights. Hunter and Catie bring dead things back to life when they both touch it. She wants nothing to do with their power, and he tries to force it. The story could have happened without it. I loved the various little details of the haunting and how it built up to the climax. It was a BIG climax with a long battle and not a HEA for everyone.
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