Just finished The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher. I feel 50-50 on this one

Spoilers for those who haven’t read this book yet.

I just finished the book and I didn’t like it but I didn’t hate it either. I started reading it thinking it was this good horror book but then it dove into fantasy?…idek what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. The overall story was good but I had a few gripes with it.

1. Mouse’s breakup with her boyfriend was completely irrelevant and should have cut it out. I completely forgot about it until it was brought up again when she was at the coffee shop. Like I get adding backstories but this wasn’t needed.

2. What was up with phone call to the secret society/ the weird people who were at the funeral? The weird people at the funeral kept getting brought up but it didn’t add much to the story. The dad already said it was a closed casket and that Cotgrave died outside so she could have put the “big twist” together without having the hint from the guy on the phone.

3. This is a gripe that I have with all authors. Adding characters towards the end of a book just to kill them off because they were only added to keep the story moving.

4. Why not have her find the Green book? It would have explained so much because everything that Mouse was going off of was the speculation of an old man losing it.

5. The ending felt lazy. And most of the explanations fell flat for me. All of the build up just for that.

I’ve read some of the authors other books and I really liked them but this isn’t one I can say I liked. I did enjoy the overall story but when I read the descriptions I thought I was getting this mystery horror book but it wasn’t that at all. The only thing that could be considered scary was the deer in the tree before it went down the fantasy path. Also, how the fuck did that deer get in the tree? Did Anna put it there? Someone with thumbs had to put it there. Or did it float in place or use magic since magic apparently works in both worlds?

What are your thoughts on the book?