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Diaries of a Haunting: Diary of a Haunting; Possession
The Haunting of Hill House meets Paranormal Activity in these bone-chilling accounts of hauntings that torment average teens—two novels in mixed-media journal format in one terrifying package.
Letters, photographs, and two journals...all left behind in the harrowing aftermath.
This is everything that remains after the mysterious and terrifying circumstances surrounding two individuals haunted by the unbelievable.
For Paige, it begins when she moves to Idaho with her mom and little brother—into a drafty old mansion, where strange things start to happen. With words appearing on the walls and her brother roaming around the house at night, Paige takes it upon herself to uncover what’s tormenting her family. But the deeper she digs, the clearer it all whatever is in the house has no intention of backing down without a fight.
The same rings true for Laetitia and the mysterious undiagnosed illness that has taken over her body. Her symptoms start with fevers and chills but soon escalate to the unimaginable. She begins to wonder if the voices she hears and the cryptic notes she finds in her own writing are signs of insanity or signs of something much more sinister.
Something... demonic ?
Both of their terrifying journeys are here for you to witness these nightmares...and they are more haunting than you could ever imagine.
Letters, photographs, and two journals...all left behind in the harrowing aftermath.
This is everything that remains after the mysterious and terrifying circumstances surrounding two individuals haunted by the unbelievable.
For Paige, it begins when she moves to Idaho with her mom and little brother—into a drafty old mansion, where strange things start to happen. With words appearing on the walls and her brother roaming around the house at night, Paige takes it upon herself to uncover what’s tormenting her family. But the deeper she digs, the clearer it all whatever is in the house has no intention of backing down without a fight.
The same rings true for Laetitia and the mysterious undiagnosed illness that has taken over her body. Her symptoms start with fevers and chills but soon escalate to the unimaginable. She begins to wonder if the voices she hears and the cryptic notes she finds in her own writing are signs of insanity or signs of something much more sinister.
Something... demonic ?
Both of their terrifying journeys are here for you to witness these nightmares...and they are more haunting than you could ever imagine.
- GenresHorror
672 pages, Paperback
Published September 29, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 5, 2020
This book is actually a 2-in-1. I didn't know that when I stumbled across it at our local BAM or I wouldn't have bought it, because I already owned the first book but hadn't read it yet. Oops! I'm going to have to review the two books in this compendium separately because I loved one (5 stars) and the other was just so-so for me (3 stars).
Both books are written by a fake author, M. Verano. Turns out this guy is actually a character in the books, a supposed professor of paranormal activity. The ACTUAL author is Amy Ross. And that was not easy to Google. I was trying to figure out if the third book in this series is going to be put into a future 2-in-1 with an as-yet-unpublished book 4, but I can't find any info and, since M. Verano is not actually a real person/author, "he" is not on social media. (I'm not mad about it, though, because it's really kind of clever and I like the gimmick.) Then I accidentally found a website that said M. Verano was just a pseudonym for Amy Ross and if I wanted to see the author's bibliography, I needed to look for her instead.
So book 1 of this series is Diary of a Haunting. It's basically set up like an internet journal account, where you're reading the main character's blog posts. I've been blogging for 20 years so I was into that style. The main character is the daughter of an actress and a director. The director cheated on her mom and is out of the picture, and Mom has moved the main character and her little brother to the country to rent a big, creepy, infested house.
What I loved about Diary of a Haunting was that it was packed with the stereotypical things we all love to see in a horror film, and the story unfolded at a great pace. I read it in about three days and was hooked from start to finish. The journal entries are supplemented with photographs and pamphlets and things, so there are lots of visuals, too. It was all very creepy. And since it's written in an online blog format, the haunting crossed over into the technological world and made it even creepier. I was up late at night reading this and I loved it.
If I had any complaints, it's that the main character being a high school girl was a little unrealistic. For one thing, her vocabular was way too mature. She used words like "haranguing" in her daily dialogue and it just didn't sound like that was a teenage girl speaking. And while she had moved to a midwestern state from Los Angeles and was initially concerned about making friends in a new school, after about two entries about first becoming a cool kid and then immediately becoming a social pariah for flirting with someone else's boyfriend, she never, ever mentions school again except to occasionally say she's still going, and that continues well into June when, at least where I live, school is out for the summer. There's no mention of anything going on at school that a real student would be thinking about, like dating, school dances, grades, homework. I felt like I was left hanging and was missing a huge part of the story after it was built up that she'd made all the popular kids so mad right up front.
And, to be honest, I didn't like the way the book ended. I absolutely loved it up until the very end, and then there was a totally nonsensical plot twist that contradicted everything else that happened in the book and I was just let down. But the journey up to that point was so good, I can look past it.
Major trigger warning: spiders. So many spiders are discussed. But there are NO pictures of them! Creepy-crawlies factor into the plot majorly but the only photos shown are of flies.
Book 2 is Possession. I liked it so much less than Haunting, but I finished both halves of the 666-page compilation in a week so they were both fast reads.
Possession struggled with pacing where Haunting really shone. Haunting just made sense, in that they were moving to a new house and slowly coming to realize something is wrong there. Possession starts off with spontaneous paranormal happenings then it takes half the story to figure out why those things are occurring. And instead of slowly building up, they're at basically full force from start to finish. The main character in Possession is supposed to be a beauty blogger but within about 3 posts she's completely lost all her followers, made her account private, and stopped blogging about beauty to post about the creepy stuff that's happening to her instead. It was painfully rushed.
I also did not like the main character in Possession. I liked that she was black and dealing with issues that unfortunately impact black communities statistically more often than others (such as police shootings of innocent bystanders), but this girl was just so unlikable herself. She had an enormous ego that was super off-putting. Her hope in life is to become a singer, and she likes to talk about what an amazing voice she has, and says over and over how she's so much better than other people. She also expects her friends to drop everything going on in their lives to pay attention to hers. Her friend is trying to reach out about relationship issues, and she only talks about herself. Yeah, I agree that a demonic possession is a bit more important than whether or not so-and-so's boyfriend is cheating, but still. She doesn't even pretend to care about anyone but herself. She did not seem like someone I would be friends with. But overall she was a more realistic teenager than the lead in Haunting.
The visuals in Possession were excellent, though. If you've read or seen anything about demonic possessions, you already know you're in for some gore. Can't help it, it's my up of tea. I loved it. She's coughing up nails and bones and all kinds of crazy stuff, and she takes pictures of it to upload to her blog, and it's all right there in print on the page. (It doesn't look all that grotesque, but just be aware it's in there.) There are also pictures of dead birds and an animal sacrifice takes place.
Some of the best visual aids were police reports, psychiatric notes, and social worker case logs. All that stuff made the story feel more real.
I felt like Possession had a better blog concept than Haunting, in that it started out as a beauty blog and therefore the main character had a real use in having an online journal. But it became rather ridiculous that she was permitted to continue using it even when she was put into a psychiatric facility. That's not how that works. Especially if the screen was cracked. They're not going to give you a cell phone and laptop and especially won't let you use those things unsupervised. That was just bonkers to even be in there.
My feelings on the ending are mixed. I kind of feel like in the end the main character's enormous ego just got another boost and I think I'm a little mad about it. lol
So, in sum: Both Haunting and Possession leave you wondering whether or not there was any haunting at all, or if the girls' issues were purely psychological. The M. Verano character was a little distracting in Haunting and he raised more questions than he solved, but his appearance was almost non-existent in Possession so I feel like he really needs to figure out his sweet spot for his gimmick to work. The visual additions are amazing in both stories. And I loved the blogging angle, but it only works as long as having a computer handy is realistic. 4 out of 5 stars total. Fast read, lots of spooky stuff. And I really want to read more.
Both books are written by a fake author, M. Verano. Turns out this guy is actually a character in the books, a supposed professor of paranormal activity. The ACTUAL author is Amy Ross. And that was not easy to Google. I was trying to figure out if the third book in this series is going to be put into a future 2-in-1 with an as-yet-unpublished book 4, but I can't find any info and, since M. Verano is not actually a real person/author, "he" is not on social media. (I'm not mad about it, though, because it's really kind of clever and I like the gimmick.) Then I accidentally found a website that said M. Verano was just a pseudonym for Amy Ross and if I wanted to see the author's bibliography, I needed to look for her instead.
So book 1 of this series is Diary of a Haunting. It's basically set up like an internet journal account, where you're reading the main character's blog posts. I've been blogging for 20 years so I was into that style. The main character is the daughter of an actress and a director. The director cheated on her mom and is out of the picture, and Mom has moved the main character and her little brother to the country to rent a big, creepy, infested house.
What I loved about Diary of a Haunting was that it was packed with the stereotypical things we all love to see in a horror film, and the story unfolded at a great pace. I read it in about three days and was hooked from start to finish. The journal entries are supplemented with photographs and pamphlets and things, so there are lots of visuals, too. It was all very creepy. And since it's written in an online blog format, the haunting crossed over into the technological world and made it even creepier. I was up late at night reading this and I loved it.
If I had any complaints, it's that the main character being a high school girl was a little unrealistic. For one thing, her vocabular was way too mature. She used words like "haranguing" in her daily dialogue and it just didn't sound like that was a teenage girl speaking. And while she had moved to a midwestern state from Los Angeles and was initially concerned about making friends in a new school, after about two entries about first becoming a cool kid and then immediately becoming a social pariah for flirting with someone else's boyfriend, she never, ever mentions school again except to occasionally say she's still going, and that continues well into June when, at least where I live, school is out for the summer. There's no mention of anything going on at school that a real student would be thinking about, like dating, school dances, grades, homework. I felt like I was left hanging and was missing a huge part of the story after it was built up that she'd made all the popular kids so mad right up front.
And, to be honest, I didn't like the way the book ended. I absolutely loved it up until the very end, and then there was a totally nonsensical plot twist that contradicted everything else that happened in the book and I was just let down. But the journey up to that point was so good, I can look past it.
Major trigger warning: spiders. So many spiders are discussed. But there are NO pictures of them! Creepy-crawlies factor into the plot majorly but the only photos shown are of flies.
Book 2 is Possession. I liked it so much less than Haunting, but I finished both halves of the 666-page compilation in a week so they were both fast reads.
Possession struggled with pacing where Haunting really shone. Haunting just made sense, in that they were moving to a new house and slowly coming to realize something is wrong there. Possession starts off with spontaneous paranormal happenings then it takes half the story to figure out why those things are occurring. And instead of slowly building up, they're at basically full force from start to finish. The main character in Possession is supposed to be a beauty blogger but within about 3 posts she's completely lost all her followers, made her account private, and stopped blogging about beauty to post about the creepy stuff that's happening to her instead. It was painfully rushed.
I also did not like the main character in Possession. I liked that she was black and dealing with issues that unfortunately impact black communities statistically more often than others (such as police shootings of innocent bystanders), but this girl was just so unlikable herself. She had an enormous ego that was super off-putting. Her hope in life is to become a singer, and she likes to talk about what an amazing voice she has, and says over and over how she's so much better than other people. She also expects her friends to drop everything going on in their lives to pay attention to hers. Her friend is trying to reach out about relationship issues, and she only talks about herself. Yeah, I agree that a demonic possession is a bit more important than whether or not so-and-so's boyfriend is cheating, but still. She doesn't even pretend to care about anyone but herself. She did not seem like someone I would be friends with. But overall she was a more realistic teenager than the lead in Haunting.
The visuals in Possession were excellent, though. If you've read or seen anything about demonic possessions, you already know you're in for some gore. Can't help it, it's my up of tea. I loved it. She's coughing up nails and bones and all kinds of crazy stuff, and she takes pictures of it to upload to her blog, and it's all right there in print on the page. (It doesn't look all that grotesque, but just be aware it's in there.) There are also pictures of dead birds and an animal sacrifice takes place.
Some of the best visual aids were police reports, psychiatric notes, and social worker case logs. All that stuff made the story feel more real.
I felt like Possession had a better blog concept than Haunting, in that it started out as a beauty blog and therefore the main character had a real use in having an online journal. But it became rather ridiculous that she was permitted to continue using it even when she was put into a psychiatric facility. That's not how that works. Especially if the screen was cracked. They're not going to give you a cell phone and laptop and especially won't let you use those things unsupervised. That was just bonkers to even be in there.
My feelings on the ending are mixed. I kind of feel like in the end the main character's enormous ego just got another boost and I think I'm a little mad about it. lol
So, in sum: Both Haunting and Possession leave you wondering whether or not there was any haunting at all, or if the girls' issues were purely psychological. The M. Verano character was a little distracting in Haunting and he raised more questions than he solved, but his appearance was almost non-existent in Possession so I feel like he really needs to figure out his sweet spot for his gimmick to work. The visual additions are amazing in both stories. And I loved the blogging angle, but it only works as long as having a computer handy is realistic. 4 out of 5 stars total. Fast read, lots of spooky stuff. And I really want to read more.
June 27, 2022
There are two books in this one, Diary of a Haunting and Possession. I gave each book four stars. Overall these were both pretty decent horror reads. They weren’t very scary and they were pretty predictable, but I still really enjoyed them. Throughout the book you’ll see photos, diary entries, letters, doctor’s notes and more. I enjoyed this aspect of the book as I feel it made it more interactive and entertaining to read.
𝒟𝒾𝒶𝓇𝓎 𝑜𝒻 𝒶 𝐻𝒶𝓊𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 was written as diary entries. In this book you follow Paige as her family moves into an old mansion. Strange things start to happen and she digs into the history of the home and it’s inhabitants.
𝒫𝑜𝓈𝓈𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃 was written as blog entries. In this book you follow Laetitia who’s dream is this be a famous singer. However, her dream is put on hold as she battles an undiagnosed illness. As symptoms escalate she begins to think that something more sinister is the cause.
𝒟𝒾𝒶𝓇𝓎 𝑜𝒻 𝒶 𝐻𝒶𝓊𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 was written as diary entries. In this book you follow Paige as her family moves into an old mansion. Strange things start to happen and she digs into the history of the home and it’s inhabitants.
𝒫𝑜𝓈𝓈𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃 was written as blog entries. In this book you follow Laetitia who’s dream is this be a famous singer. However, her dream is put on hold as she battles an undiagnosed illness. As symptoms escalate she begins to think that something more sinister is the cause.
August 10, 2022
Diaries of A Haunting has 2 books in it, Diary Of A Haunting And Possession. Overall both of these books were pretty good, they were a bit predictable and not too scary. The stories themselves weren’t amazing, but the interactive elements definitely helped make the whole book better. I enjoyed how these books were written as diary and blog entries and that they had photographs, letters and patient reports to read.
March 5, 2024
This book is 2 for 1. These books are in a form that is set to be like reading a journal. This although, is interesting, leaves for a lot of questions regarding the time line and the overall circumstances that are occurring throughout both books.
Overall an interesting read, but not one I think I'll re-read.
Overall an interesting read, but not one I think I'll re-read.
November 9, 2021
The layout for this book keeps it fast paced. The girl's stories are different and intriguing. I recommend reading at night under a blanket.
November 15, 2022
Relatively enjoyed the first story, but the second was awful
June 16, 2023
Is this s**t real?
December 23, 2022
I’m not sure if this story was actually real but if it is then I’m definitely shocked and think it’s extraordinary what little things we know about the paranormal. I read the book and I loved it the moment I started it. I enjoyed the style of the story a lot how it was written makes it feels even more real while reading it.
March 29, 2022
This book was composed of two different stories. The first one I gave two stars and the second one 4.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews