Not a horror story
I really love diving into spooky reads for my October ARCs, but this year I found a few coming out in September that I could not resist - The Decadence was one of them.
Jan and her friends are bored during the Covid lockdowns and decide to travel to the abandoned Holt House, inherited by one of the group Theo. However, partying soon turns to something sinister as things start to happen in the house that cannot be explained.
I picked up The Decadence thinking it would be a haunted house story, however it seems to very much be a book about this group of very unlikeable people and their relationships with each other. All of the characters seem self-absorbed, shallow and manipulative. There's lots of odd discussions about politics which didn't seem at all relevant to the plot, but then some of the lesser characters - Ursie and Kara, in particular seem barely fleshed out.
The plot is a very slow burn and even as far as 75% of the way through nothing has really happened. The group have arguments, take drugs, eat food and sleep with each other, over and over again. A few odd things happen here and there - a vase moves, a notebook gets pulled apart. I honestly felt at any point that I could just put it down and not pick it back up again and I wouldn't care, even right towards the end - I just really wasn't invested. Events come to a bit of a climax involving the history of the house, but as we know so little about the previous inhabitants or even the central character to their story Theo, it didn't really make much sense. The final chapter was confusing and didn't really add much to the story either.
Overall, The Decadence is not really a horror story, it's a story about a group of people taking a lot of drugs who don't really like each other. I personally found it bland, boring and irrelevant. Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder and Stoughton - Sceptre for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
