Reviews for Play nice
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Tenuous memories and unresolved trauma haunt horror phenom Harrison's (So Thirsty) new page-turner. Influencer Clio Barnes is out on the town when she receives news that her estranged mother has suffered a fatal heart attack. The youngest of three daughters, Clio has few of her own memories of her mother, Alex, who lost custody of her children long ago; most of what she knows about her mother's abusiveness and alcohol addiction was supplied by Clio's sisters and father. The sisters inherit Alex's house, which their mother always purported to be haunted, even detailing her supernatural encounters in a book her children have never read. Clio moves in to the house to get it ready to sell and is confronted with the means to get to know her late mother and her demons. She is soon pulled into a psychological maelstrom. Through witty prose, raw emotion, and bone-chilling sequences, Harrison balances the terrifying and the tender as Clio questions her memories, her mother's claims, and the source of her family's suffering. VERDICT With shades of The Amityville Horror and Kiersten White's Mister Magic, this refreshing haunted-house novel has chills, thrills, and twists that will linger with readers long after it's over.—Emily Vinci
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth) puts a millennial spin on the haunted house genre with this spooky but underbaked tale of sisterhood, self-destruction, and social media. While enjoying a night out, influencer Clio Barnes gets a call informing her that her estranged and deeply troubled mother has died. She reunites with her sisters, Leda and Daphne, to process the news. After making the bold decision to attend their mother’s funeral, it becomes clear that death was only the beginning of the trouble to follow. The sisters inherit their childhood home, which their mother always claimed was haunted and used as the basis of her paranormal memoir, Demon of Edgewood Drive: The True Story of a Suburban Haunting. With memories of childhood trauma lurking around every corner, none of the sisters want anything to do with the house, except for Clio, who sees the potential for house-flipping social media content. When she discovers and starts reading a worn copy of her mother’s memoir and strange occurrences plague the house, she begins to question what’s real, culminating in a confrontation with the many ghosts of her past. The result is certainly a breezy and entertaining supernatural story, but one that offers few surprises. Meanwhile, a shoehorned romance subplot and underdeveloped secondary characters detract from the fun. This isn’t Harrison’s best. (Nov.)
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Harrison turns her attention from vampires and werewolves to the ghosts of childhood trauma. Stylist and fashion influencer Clio Barnes has been estranged from her mother for years, as have her sisters. When their mother dies, she leaves her house to Leda, Daphne, and Clio. The elder two want nothing to do with the house, but Clio has visions of renovating the place, turning her DIY into content, and flipping it for a profit. One more detail: The house is possessed by a demon. InSo Thirsty (2024), Harrison wrote a book about vampires that was also a novel about best friends trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Here, Harrison mines the potential of the haunted house to excavate the abuse that Clio and her sisters suffered as children. Clio is a terrific protagonist. She’s sharp and funny and a little less self-aware than she thinks she is. As she tries to reconcile her own memories with those of her family—including her mother, who left behind an annotated copy of the book she wrote about living in a demon-plagued split-level in the suburbs—and questions her own sense of reality, Clio unravels. But it’s a necessary unraveling, the kind of annihilation that makes real change possible. This novel delivers truly chilly scenes while also exploring the emotional depths that make horror meaningful. There’s a climactic scene at a family barbecue where Clio sees echoes of her mother in herself, Leda, and Daphne and thinks, “Her ghost is us.” There are many emotionally devastating moments in this novel, but this one captures the essence of them all. Harrison knows that we are, all of us, haunted. Harrison has earned a place among a vanguard of women reinventing horror that includes Mona Awad and Julia Armfield. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
