Grey Dog by Elliott Gish

⭐⭐⭐/5

A slow-burn, turn-of-the-century, small town paranormal-horror story that left me with questions about the power of female rage.

Before I get into the book review, to me, this story was almost identical to Diavola by Jennifer Thorne in terms of our main character, the pacing and the beats of the haunting. Even the main characters' names are almost the same. I actually referenced my review of Diavola to write this review. So if you liked Diavola, this is a good one to go with. Unfortunately, neither of these books was for me.

I like that the format of this book is in diary entries from our main character, Ada. We follow her from the moment she arrives as a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in a small village and follow her through to her last diary entry before she stops writing.

Strange things start happening around the town such as a swarm of bees, a rabbit biting off its own tongue and more. I like how Elliott Gish builds the setting. I felt like I was right beside Ada, shadowing her as she experiences these strange happenings. The pacing is very slow, but if you like vibes in your horror stories, then you'll appreciate the time Elliott is taking here.

We spend a lot of time experiencing the haunting, but I wished our characters, especially our main character had more agency earlier in the book. Between the meanness of people in the village, and the haunting, it felt like the story was happening to Ada instead of Ada leading the story. I liked the ending. We get some real bad girl energy from Anna which I resonated with and wished for more of.

The audiobook is narrated by Natalie Naudus, who is this generation's voice of horror and unsettling stories (I know she narrates so many more genres, but I love her in horror!). I loved her in Starling House by Alix E. Harrow and The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey. Natalie did an amazing job here! Her voice is gives us so much emotion and she did a great job embodying the character and reacting to the parts of the story in a way that brought me deeper into the narrative. I am definitely going to look for more books narrated by her in the future. If you prefer audiobooks, then this is a good one to listen to.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dreamscape Media and ECW for this ARC.

This book is best read while trying to identify headless creatures on your iNaturalist app. If people start looking at you strangely, growl.