I really loved Model Home. I think haunted house horror/mystery novels are my favorite thing out there. That’s because you are supposed to be safe with your family, Model Home shows that sometimes it’s your family and neighborhood you should fear.
“Model Home” follows Ezri (they/them) and their daughter, Elijah, who are living in London. We find out quite quickly that Ezri has moments when they are not in themselves, that they are far away. Ezri longs for and loathes their mother and the house they grew up in, in Texas. When Ezri is contacted by their sisters, Eve and Emmanuelle that their parents are dead, Ezri worries that returning home will have them being pulled into a dark place again.
First off, there are a lot of E names going on, but you quickly get used to it. The writing of the book at times was a bit hard to get into, but once you get there, you quickly get sucked in.
Most of the book follows Ezri that is wondering if something monstrous lurks in them or their house. We at times get their daughter’s POV, but that’s it.
The setting of the house itself just didn’t feel right to me while reading. Maybe because there are very few scenes we get in the home except for Ezri’s dread. Most of the time the things Ezri is talking about happened outside the home. And then the question remains what did the Maxwell siblings parents know and how did all of them get so far apart from each other.
Thought that Solomon did a great job depicting what it means to be Black and queer like Ezri is and how hard that must have been as a Black person living in Texas back then.
For me though, the ending was missing what came before it, I think that Solomon tried to wrap things up and it didn’t work (at least for me). I did like most of the ending, but not the twist and resolution. It left too many plot holes for me and at least I wanted a better explanation or something. I think a lot of horror novels now never seem to be able to fully stick the landing and are afraid of going dark and or fully explain a thing and just kind of go for a shock twist that just comes out of nowhere.