Model Home tells the story of three siblings, haunted by the horrors they were subject to in their childhood home. In the wake of their parents' death, the siblings are forced to confront the memories that plague them.

Rivers Solomon weaves a bleak and devastating tale of trauma and grief, and how such grief causes not only the trauma to resurface but also all that you wished could be. Each sibling is continually affected by the events that transpired, haunted in difference ways: Ezri, a non binary parent with a host of mental health diagnoses, whose teenage daughter has to fend for herself when they dissociate; Eve, a wise and bossy perfectionist yearning for control; Emmanuel, masquerading as functioning, even successful, despite being a neurotic clusterfuck of emotion. No one believed them when they said their house was haunted. No one helped. No one came to save them. The siblings splintered due to their childhood experiences, suffering with mental and physical scars. In the wake of grief, a family can fracture and re-form. As I'm discovering in my own grief, you discover things you wish you knew earlier, and things you wish you could forget. Model Home tells a story of generational trauma, history repeating itself, and what can be learnt from examining our ghosts. Though the torment can be familiar, especially with a mother for whom you were never good enough, we realise that anyone has the capacity to hurt us and it's important to reckon with the intersection of torment this young, black family was subject to. It's devastating and cruel and destructive. It's pervasive, even if you didn't know what it was. It haunts. It leeches away life. Does it feed on what it takes? In the end, what's left of us? I deeply understand the doubt of not knowing what's real, the fear of being unable to remember, and the hurt when people blame you. Things may go bump in the night, if only they stayed there.

"Instead, I’m a vessel of ghosts, the me’s that died, the me’s that never could be, unbound by time, by social graces."

It's important to note the serious issues tackled here: abuse, grief, and racism, among others. Rivers Solomon handles these topics with care, which is something I have now come to expect. From the two books of theirs I have now read, they write LGBT+ characters (and characters in general) extremely well. They depict trauma, mental illness, and grief expertly, weaving a story with poetically relatable prose (yet another book full of highlights). I have only given 4 stars as I found it was largely interpersonal dynamics, relationships, and conversations, with a slower pace than I prefer. I did also note many speech marks missing which made it harder to read. As is typical for me, I wanted more overt horror, but I enjoyed the story overall. As you progress, the dread mounts because you know what's going on, you know the trauma and the abuse that's occurred but has been pushed down to cope. Pushed down so deep you can barely reach it. It doesn’t matter that you can see it coming. It will still hit you like a train.

"The realization that validation of the pain will never come from those who inflicted the pain has the power to obliterate. Did it happen? If they’re not apologizing, if they’re not admitting they’ve done it, did they do it? What is real? What is true? Is my life a fantasy? Then let me wake up by dying."

Sometimes people are what haunts the house. Sometimes people are the monsters under the bed.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Model Home was my second attempt at reading a Rivers Solomon novel, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me again. I was initially drawn in by the unique premise—a haunted house story centered on the hidden horrors families leave behind, exploring trauma and generational pain as the real ghosts lurking in the home. It sounded like a fresh and intriguing approach to the haunted house genre, one that would examine the weight of family secrets and unresolved issues as lingering presences.

However, the writing style made it challenging for me to stay immersed. At times, I couldn’t tell if events were actually unfolding or if they were metaphors, blurring the line between reality and symbolism in a way that felt disorienting rather than engaging. While I appreciate the ambition and artistry, the style just wasn’t for me. Still, thank you to the publishers for the early copy!

This is my second book by Solomon now and feel the same about this one as I did about Sorrowland. They're both beautifully written and haunting, albeit a little tricky to first get into (and took me longer to read than usual), they're hard to start, but so worth it when you stick it out, and I'm so glad I did.

Model Home is a dark, atmospheric trip into family trauma that hits really hard. This one is extra eerie and unsettling, the kind of story that sinks under your skin and comes back to you occasionally out of nowhere. Solomon again masterfully tackles themes of identity and generational trauma, all wrapped up in a spooky haunted house vibe that feels way too real at times. The characters, especially Ezri, are so deeply layered that you can't help but feel for them, even as you're trying figure out what's going on. It's heavy, it’s haunting, and it doesn't let up—perfect if you love your horror with a side of existential dread.

A big thank you to the author, Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The writing is absolutely stunning and the story itself was thought provoking and so important.
It had me digging far below surface level to really understand the dynamics of not only the family, but the influences outside them. It wasn't what I was expecting at all but in the BEST way possible.
A truly fantastic read and I'll definitely pick up more from the author.

The Maxwell siblings—Ezri, Eve, and Emmanuelle—have just lost their parents in what the police report describes as a murder-suicide. However, the children know better; they sense that their house holds secrets and that their parent’s death might not be as straightforward as it appears. “If a house has claws, a house has claws.”

The mother is a compelling character, a professor who moved the family from New York to Oak Creek Estate in North Dallas, believing it was best to raise her children in a gated community. “[Mother] thought she could separate us from the world. That’s what the gates in gated communities are for, aren’t they? To ward off the suffering that seems to befall the commoners?” They are the only Black family in the neighbourhood. Laurie, a curious neighbour, quickly drops by to welcome them but is also eager to uncover why they moved. At first, the neighbours seem nice enough, but as the story progresses, we learn that strange and frightening events begin to occur in their new home (often referred to as 677): pets are harmed, and children suffer.

The siblings carry a tremendous amount of suffering and anger, and mental well-being is a recurring theme throughout the narrative. Much remains unsaid about the family, and information is revealed through flashbacks, memories, and conversations among the siblings leading up to their parents' funeral. Rivers Solomon deftly explores the legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South through Ezri and xer (there is a reference to Ezri using xe/xer/her pronouns) family's tragic history. For them, the house is haunted; in fact, they have made sure to keep their distance from it and have not visited since they left, Ezri in particular having gone to England.

However, this isn’t your stereotypical haunted house. Solomon reminds us halfway through that, “When we speak of a house that is haunted, all we are speaking of is a house that is violent, and many houses are violent. Mold-besmirched. Leaded water. Holes in the floor. Windows that let in cold. Heating that doesn’t work. Shitty cladding. At its end, Grenfell Tower was a haunted house. Every house in Flint, in so many cities, is a haunted house. So, 677 was a shelter, a space, and everything awful about it was not so different from many other houses.” But for Ezri, “[…] haints, curses, juju, hoodoo. These things are no more made up than my host of diagnoses—which change with whatever clinician I see. BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), OSDD (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder), NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) […]” and the list goes on. This gives a sense of the contemporary horrors/attitudes, which Solomon explores in Model Home .

The story unfolds through Ezri’s perspective. Ezri is now raising xer fourteen-year-old daughter, Elijah, alone while suffering from depression, haunted by ghosts from the past. High-achieving sister Eve is raising twins alone in Texas, and youngest sister, Emmanuelle, is shining as a rising star on social media.

Events spiral out of control when the press starts to hound the family, leading to Emmanuelle exposing many private aspects of the family’s life online and on TV.

Model Home is brutal and chillingly audacious. This could easily become a Jordan Peele film (please?!), and I would love it if it did.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the advance reader's copy.

This is a superb literary gothic horror that really understands the heart of the genre - a house where terrible things happened; the horrors of the past leaking into the present; generational trauma; self-destructive behaviour not limited to remaining in remaining within racist communities and having queer sex with harmful people; grooming and childhood sexual assault; estranged and difficult relationships; hurt people desperately searching for intimacy in the hope it will heal them.

I won’t lie, it was brutal to read. Rivers does not shy away from the racism, transphobia, mental illness and childhood trauma at the root of the story. But it has so, so much heart, and the painful moments felt worth it to see Ezri and their siblings fight for each other’s love even while they don’t always know how to give it, because all three of them dealt differently with growing up in a haunted house. Another highlight was Ezri’s relationship with their late mother, which was complicated and painful and pervades every aspect of their life.

I could not review MODEL HOME without mentioning the prose, which was STUNNING. I was highlighting like nobodies business. It was poetic in a stripped-back way, just as stark and brutal as the story itself, but beautiful too. I am obsessed.

Model Home tells the story of a rich Black family living in a gated white neighbourhood. The three children of the family, all now adults, are brought back into their haunting and haunted childhood 'model home' when to find both their parents dead. The focus of the novel is the eldest genderfluid child, Ezri, their relationship with their overbearing mother, and xer parenting of xer daughter, Elijah. The central metaphor of the narrative is the pressure to create 'model homes' which white supremacy puts on Black domesticity. This is a literary novel with genre elements, not a horror novel.

I loved the achingly precise prose conjured by River Solomon. They find the words you didn't even think you needed. Appreciate the opening lines: 'Maybe my mother is God, and that's why nothing I do pleases her. Maybe my mother is God, and that's why thought she never once saved me, I keep praying that this time she will. [...] Soon, I'll be a failed deity, too. My daughter is learning not to believe in me'. Or look at this description of a parent's love for their child: 'Elijah disorients me. A kind of flickering candle that, at times, I cannot stop looking at, prone to stare, and other times looking away from, lest the flame give me spots in my eyes'. How bloody beautiful is that?

Solomon excels at describing the intricacies of their characters' inner worlds. Ezri's journey and their relationship with their mother (and the haunting Nightmare Mother) are intricately written. I also appreciated Solomon's centring of an intersex character. Often Solomon goes for the less expected in crafting their characters. For example, the mother was not queerphobic, as she could have been in the hands of a lesser writer. Instead, she made Ezri's gender identity and her unequivocal support for them into a tool to bolster her ego, showing that toxic parenting is not always about 'support' vs 'lack of support'.

As I was reading the novel, a couple of things came into my mind. For the first half or so I wasn't sure if I was engaged enough by the pace and the relative lack of presence of the house itself in the narrative. That specific issue is explained by the nature of the ending, so I can see why Solomon constructed the narrative the way they did, but it was to the detriment of the earlier, slower portions of the story. For a large part of the 50-75% mark I kept thinking that the youngest sister, Emmanuelle, 'an influencer with a brand built on reclaimed Texasness', was underexplored and had much more potential. She does get her moments to shine later on in the book, but the broader point still stands - we get more of Ezri, their mother and their daughter than we get of the Eve and Emmanuelle, which is a shame, as they are both quite interesting characters who dealt with the trauma of growing up in the model home in their own unique ways.

Before the ending hit, I pondered about the ways in which Solomon subverted some expectations. I am not sure if this was intentional, but given the key metaphor of the narrative, the actual scenes we are shown do not revel in the day to day of the pressures the white community and the HOA put on the family. As readers we are told that the Black family struggled, but we are not shown the micro and not so micro aggressions they must have encountered in great detail. I thought it was an interesting narrative choice. I read is as a reluctance to retraumatise readers by gazing upon the obvious and the things that do not need to be spelled out and said aloud. So many novels about marginalised experiences have the obligatory ten scenes of explicit racialised aggression or violence. Model Home shows us enough to indicate what the problem is - for example, when Ezri encounters a dad of one of their childhood neighbours near the home, or, more cleverly, when they hear from a Black reporter who grew up in a similar community and who sympathizes with them, but it does not relish in having to spell things out by including explicit scenes (not until the very end, at least). As a pinnacle of this approach, I read the episode with Emmanuelle in the talk show as an echo of the gaslighting marginalised people go through, with a literal ghost standing in for white supremacy. The host doubts that there is a ghost and suggests that Emmanuelle's mother is behind all the awful things the family went through, literally refusing to believe Emmanuelle's version of events and shifting the blame onto a Black person.

Roughly at that point I was ready to give the novel the full five stars. I thought it was going in a particular direction, but Solomon resolved the narrative in a much more straightforward and explicit way. Without spoiling the story, I would just say that the ending, whilst completely justified, felt too neat to me. It shifted the focus onto another issue (which, to be honest, did loom large in the novel up to that point), and made the 'haunted by white supremacy' metaphor quite literal. I can see why Solomon went there, but I thought the novel would have been more interesting and complex without such a literal resolution. On top of that, I felt that Elijah's plot and trauma did not get nearly enough time for any sort of resolution, and as a result the character felt more of a vehicle for Ezri's development rather than a person in her own right.

The ending didn't quite work for me, but I would still encourage you to read this brilliant novel and I would absolutely love to debate and discuss it once you have.

this book takes they haunted house story and brings so much more to it. It wasn't what I expected going in but really it was better. It's a very heavy and intense read. I also loved the unusual writing style which really fit this book. It won't be for everyone but I thought it was great.

I've heard great things about this writer so I was excited to finally try a novel, and the writing really is dark, engaging, and beautiful. The main character engages in uncomfortable acts, clearly related to ongoing trauma, while returning home after the family's parents are found dead.
This book did such a great job building up this tense atmosphere, but then, at least for me, didn't deliver. Still, the writing is amazing so this won't be my last Solomon. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

With books this good, it’s hard to write a review that you feel will do it justice. So first off: read this book. It’s great.

After receiving a text from a creature known only as ‘Nightmare Mother’, Ezri returns to their parents’ home in a wealthy, predominantly white neighbourhood in Dallas, a home from which they had fled along with their two younger sisters as an adolescent. Despite the disturbing, supernatural happenings and trauma inflicted on their children in, or by, the house, Ezri’s parents had chosen to stay, becoming mostly estranged from all three children. Ezri arrives to find her parents dead in their home under mysterious circumstances. As Ezri and their sisters deal with the aftermath of their parents’ deaths, the story unfolds into a deeply suspenseful, unnerving twist on a haunted house horror. How can an investigation into their parents’ deaths be conducted when the killer may be the house itself? Who would believe such a thing?

While weaving together a terrifying horror story, Solomon also writes beautifully of trauma, survival, and the nature of the self - how we are formed by the stories others tell us and the ones we tell ourselves. Their writing is nimble, leaping between moments of surreal terror and domestic relations deftly; I felt a simultaneous trust in their storytelling ability and a constant discomfort of not knowing where it would take me next. This is easily one of the best books I have read this year.

Thank you to net gallery for this arc copy.
This book did end up taking me way longer to read than usual as I thought it was a horror book and I was so wrong on that. I found this book so hard to get into and I struggled to read it at times. The three main characters are traumatised by events leading up to the deaths of their parents and I found any book with the death of a mother involved very hard to read due to personal reasons so this was such a hard read for me at times. It certainly is a very difficult read but I will say it is so well written though. This is a different take on horror - visceral and emotional
The writing is beautiful and emotionally charged even in the darker parts of the book I will say. Please please be aware that this is a such a harrowing read and that it will definitely haunt you so best not to read at night time. I was very intrigued by this book and it’s story but it just wasn’t for me sadly and I wouldn’t read from this author again either sadly as I don’t think there the right author for me with what books they write. Such a shame this book wasn’t the for me in the end. Xxx

I found this hard to get into initially but when I did it was a dark and engrossing book with themes of intergenerational trauma, race and gender.

Ezri, Emmanuelle and Eve, are traumatised by events leading up to the deaths of their parents in an exclusive enclave. It's a take on the haunted house novel but one which has a 21st century twist.

I liked the fragmented style of the writing. Unusual and strange book that was well executed

Definitely a difficult read but excellently written. This is a different take on horror - visceral and emotional
The writing is beautiful and emotionally charged even in the darker parts of the book. The characterisation was excellently done with themes of gender dysphoria, race, and inter generational abuse.
A haunted house of family secrets and the way that abuse/trauma stays with someone, an excellent and harrowing read.

It’s fitting that the characters of Model Home should talk about The Bluest Eye, as the hollow feeling this book left me with is only comparable to my experience with that book. A harrowing look at intergenerational abuse and how the damage can haunt you and colour your experiences for a lifetime. This is a difficult and visceral read.

When their parents bodies are found, three siblings must reckon with the nightmarish past that brought them here. Model Home is the perfect example of horror with an emotional core for fans of The Book of Accidents and How To Sell A Haunted House.

A difficult read, but one with a lot of depth and poignance. At its heart, Model Home is a meditation on race relations and gender identity, centred around Number 677, the Texas home in which three siblings grow up. This is a house that has a terrifying legacy for Ezri, Emmanuelle and Eve, and cements trauma in them that is to last a lifetime, up until the deaths of their parents in the very same home. Solomon is able to challenge the cliches of the haunted house novel in intriguing ways, exploring how, sometimes, the threats and fears we face in reality are often more damaging than the supernatural could ever be. But though they ask some incredibly important questions about our current society, its dark undercurrents, their narrative was so often fragmented. This works on so many levels, but the story ended up suffering as a result. A fascinating project, but one with clear shortcomings.

Took me longer than usual to read this, which speaks to how well Rivers Solomon creates an ambient vibe of tension and worry, and (yes) horror.

There were times I had to put the book down, and times when I decided against picking it up again that evening because that would mean tiptoeing back into that atmosphere and I did. not. want. to. Especially not before going to sleep because who knows what my subconscious would do with it.

I am a horror fiend, I love scary books and scary movies and am rarely ever scared by them. This, though, is the type of horror that does get to me. The kind that burrows under my skin and scrambles my synapses so that I feel like an exposed nerve the book keeps poking at. Even having a good idea of where the story may have been headed did nothing to at all to protect me from the telling of it.

This is a scary book for a multitude of reasons, some of which would be spoilers, but some of which - Solomon's ability to conjure and maintain an atmosphere, the effectiveness of their characterizations, the sheer beauty of their language even when it's used to speak of horrors - are no spoilers at all.

They are reasons why you might want to read this book.

But please be aware that this is a genuinely harrowing read that will (I'll say it) haunt you past the final page.

My thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone and Net Galley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

‘Model Home’ by Rivers Solomon is a novel we didn’t know we needed. There was an obvious gap in the market, and they have filled that gap with this grappling story that makes you question everything from the beginning. Solomon offers a hauntingly ideology of what contemporary American life could be like for Black people; it comes across as somewhat far-fetched, but at the moment how far-fetched could it be?
The exploration of three siblings and what happened in their past when they lived as a somewhat happy family at number 677. Growing up in Dalton, Texas with two sisters – Eve and Emmanual – Ezri weaves a narrative of someone who struggles with gender identity, racism and deeper problems that relate a lot closely to the ending of the story, allowing the reader to go through the story at the same time as Ezri is – as if real-life events are being written as we are reading the book.

When their parents are found dead in the house, Ezri, Eve and Emmanuel must face their questionable past of trauma, denial and terror they witnessed and the haunting by the woman with no face.

Solomons’ words will make you feel consumed in the words, and although it’s a slow-release book, you will get through the pages so fast due to the feelings you endure with the characters. The idea of being suffocated and almost possessed with emotions and information in regards to Ezri and their family. Intergenerational trauma is prominent with themes of racism, white supremacy and throughout there are darker themes of sexual assault and grooming.

Looking back at the story now I have finished reading it, it becomes so obvious how the story ended and how it all unravelled, but part of you did want the supernatural occurrences to be more involved with the outcome. Solomon challenges the stereotypical haunted house aspect, where it turns out, that the scariest things people can be confronted with are more realistic issues such as the complex trauma that Ezri had to endure as a child.

The whole storyline is to face the ghosts of your past and deal with the trauma you were dealt with otherwise it will escalate and it will haunt you. Healing in the book is shown as the hardest thing the siblings have to deal with, their existence somewhat relying on them focusing on themselves and coming together as a family rather than pushing away and falling into the darkness. Ezri shows this a lot throughout the book, spiralling into the depths of an embrace of Nightmare Mother.
I would have given this novel five stars, but the only issue I had with it was that the ending felt somewhat rushed after everything that happened. I feel that Laurie needed the punishment she deserved and the family needed that closure of justice. But I suppose letting a white person go after tormenting a black family to the point of suicide is more realistic in today’s society, unfortunately.

I loved River Solomons ‘An Unkindness of Ghosts’ due to the way it was written, and again they have managed that flow of lyrical literacy in a way that not many other writers can. The narrative is always raw, and truthful and pushes the boundaries of modern fiction to the point it doesn’t feel like fiction anymore. The energy of the narrative and the resilience of the characters balance each other out to give us this powerful novel that will be read for years to come.

"Model Home" is a compelling novel that delves into the lives of three siblings who grew up in a seemingly perfect gated home in Texas. Ezri, along with their sisters Eve and Emmanuel, spent their childhood in a large home in a predominantly White community.The siblings are compelled to faceof their past and the bitterness they hold towards their childhood home and parents for confining them there after their parents are discovered deceased in the residence. The novel delves into the idea that the real origins of our haunting experiences are not always what we first believe them to be. The book "Is no easy" , but I found it interesting because of the way the characters are developed. I also found the hypersexuality of some of the characters not so nice but is part of the complexity of their trauma and their personalities as characters. I found the book to be quite intriguing. Initially, I thought it would be more of a horror story, but it turned out to be a solid and enjoyable read.

Ezri, Eve, and Emmanuelle grew up in a haunted house that left physical and emotional scars on them, shaping their childhoods to be one of fear and unexplainable events. Fearing for the safety of their estranged parents after so many years, Ezri returns to a horrifying scene.

This book focuses heavily on grief, complex family dynamics, racism, and trauma, with prose that is fluid and stunning, not a single word wasted. The story itself is dark and heavy, and untangles satisfyingly as it reaches its conclusion. I will definitely read more from Rivers Solomon in the future if this is anything to go by – a suffocating, uneasy exploration that felt like it could go anywhere.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!