A Guest in the House

E. M. Carroll

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror

Initial Impression
It has been a long time since I picked up a graphic novel. One of my goals for 2026 is to read more graphic novels. This one was such a good surprise. I’m so glad that I read it.

Summary
Abby, a quiet young woman living a modest life, recently married David, a widowed dentist who has moved to a small lakeside town with his daughter, Crystal. As she settles into the routines of being a wife and stepmother, Abby tries to believe they will all be happy, embracing domestic life with cooking, coffee, and shared evenings in front of the TV. However, beneath that calm surface is something more sinister: Sheila, David's ex-wife, is still a spectral presence in the home. Until Abby starts to notice strange behaviors, odd gaps in the story, and unsettling clues that suggest nothing about Sheila's fate is as simple as she's been told, her death is treated as tragic but unremarkable. 

Bit by bit, the peace of the lakeside house erodes. Sheila's memory begins to appear to Abby in subtle and sometimes frightening ways. The question of whether Sheila's death was truly natural arises as the domestic façade begins to fall apart. The story pushes forward a creeping dread, drawing readers into Abby’s growing obsession and uncertainty. 

Art Style
The art in A Guest in the House shifts seamlessly between grounded realism and unsettling surrealism, which often catches you off guard. During everyday moments—grocery store runs, cleaning the kitchen, household chores—the panels are mostly grayscale. But once Abby’s inner world, her anxieties or nightmares, sparks to life, the pages erupt in lurid color: shock‑red blood splashes, veiny blues, dreamlike distortions, and hallucinatory shapes. It feels like the world itself is wobbling under Abby’s unease. That contrast—the calm white‑and‑grey domesticity against sudden bursts of horror‑tinged color—gives the story a kind of emotional texture that lingers long after you close the book. 

People aren’t drawn as hyper‑idealized heroes or villains, either. Bodies are average, expressions subtle, hair a little messy, and clothes ordinary. That ordinariness makes the horror more intrusive, more believable. Abby becomes someone you could pass on the street, which makes the uncanny feel all the sharper.

Setting
The bulk of the story takes place in a modest lakeside house, located in a quiet town where Abby and her new family try to start over. The setting is peaceful: calm water, trees around the house, the slow rhythm of suburban life, grocery runs, and quiet dinners. It seems calm—the kind of place where you’d imagine past traumas quietly fade away. But as you progress in the story, that serene feeling breaks. Even the ordinary surroundings, like the house and the lake, start to feel oppressive. The house, instead of being a haven, turns into a cage. Haunted, not just by memory but by everything unsaid. That contrast between idyllic environment and creeping dread constructs a setting that feels familiar—and deeply, uncomfortably wrong.

Atmosphere
Right from the first few pages, I thought the story and the art style both gave such an excellent atmosphere.  There’s a slow-burning tension. At first, it’s quiet—domestic, almost mundane. But as the story unfolds, unease starts showing up through every crack. The haunting in the house isn’t loud or bombastic; it starts subtle, but it sneaks. Shadows linger longer than they should. Reflections in windows seem off. The color bursts—sudden and shocking—feel like jolts to the system. The weirdness isn’t just supernatural; it’s psychological. There are moments when you question whether you're witnessing actual ghosts or the collapse of a weak mind. This ambiguity, the ongoing uncertainty about what is true, creates an atmosphere that lingers long after the last page.

There’s also a melancholy to it, and strangely, I loved it!  There is the sense that this isn’t just about a ghost but about grief, identity, and the fear of never being enough. The kind of sadness that lingers in small moments like a quiet glance, an empty chair at the table, or a child’s drawing that feels like a memory trying to break through. The atmosphere traps you there: it’s beautiful, domestic, and claustrophobic—a perfect setting for horror that doesn’t scream but whispers.

Final Thoughts
I’ve given A Guest in the House a full five stars because it haunted me long after I closed it. It’s the kind of story that creeps quietly before reaching in and twisting what you thought you understood. Abby’s narrative feels real, grounded, and flawed. She’s not a fearless heroine or a larger‑than‑life protagonist. She’s uncertain, average, and weighed down by those little everyday pressures, and that makes her all the more vulnerable. Watching her slowly unravel—or perhaps be unveiled—is painful and compelling in equal measure. The story has reminded me a lot of the movie “What Lies Beneath” starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. There are many similarities.

Still, I’m aware it may not be perfect. The ending, while powerful, leaves a bunch of threads loose. Some mysteries remain murky, and you might be left wondering whether everything you saw was real or a projection of Abby’s psyche. That ambiguity will thrill some readers—leaving the horror to simmer, but frustrate others expecting closure. For me, though, that unresolved tension is part of the appeal. 

Overall, this graphic novel sneaks up on you. It blends domestic drudgery with uncanny horror, everyday anxieties with ghostly dread, and delivers a story that hits deep. Reading it was like watching one of those indie cinematic horror films that can be considered a gem. I’d recommend A Guest in the House to anyone who likes their horror personal, unsettling, and lingering.

Key Themes

• Grief and Loss
• Domestic Anxiety
• Psychological Uncertainty / Obsession
• Haunting / Presence of the Past
• Identity and Self-Doubt
• Ambiguity of Truth