The September House by Clarissa Orlando is how I'd describe as one of the worse ones of my all time favourites.

Think about it like Silent Hill 4: The Room, but with a protagonist Margaret who just chose to live with the haunting as if it's merely a slight inconvenience. At times Margaret's self talks were incredibly dry and funny, and her own lack of interest of the malevolence in her own home became more unsettling than the violence itself. I loved Katherine, she's A Lot and Margaret is A Lot and all the characters are A Lot but they are A Lot in such a logical way. It helps that it's written by a real working clinical psychologist, so none of the weird cringey bad pop psychology here.

What I didn't super love was the ending. I think, ultimate Orlando's idea of worst fate possible for an abuser is different to my, which isn't anyone's fault but just a mild incompatibility. When it comes to stories about routine and escalating domestic violence, a lot of us wanted some degrees of fictional justice there. The very trope of vengeful feminine/child dead ghosts evolved from the form of redistribution of power, for people who can only take comfort in the fantasy of fairness in a systemically deeply unfair society*. I'm glad that it ended with all the domestic violence victims worked together to drive out and terminated the evil being Master Vale in the end, but it really really lacked any real accountability toward the non-paranormal, run-of-the-mill domestic abusers like Margaret's spouse Hal. I don't know if the writer's intend is to nothing this worthless man who spent his entire life controlling. If so, fair. But also, considering domestic abusers are routinely excused because he's drunk, or he's had a stressful day, or his mummy didn't hug him enough 30 years ago, I just want to see some fictional personal responsibility even though I know it only exists in fiction.

(*Btw I also strongly recommend the music Ghost by PanPan https://toot.cat/@BigShellEvent/112650400250586118 , that is exactly about the vengeful dead women and children demanding accountability from domestic abusers).

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