Book Review: Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

Title: Play Nice
Author: Rachel Harrison
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: September 9, 2025
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.

Play Nice is a story of women confronting their demons… literally and figuratively. And just to be clear, while the synopsis and many blurbs refer to this as a haunted house story, this is not actually about a haunted house. No ghosts! However, the house is possessed, and the demon inside it isn’t going anywhere.

Yes, the house scares me. But nothing scares me as much as the idea that I might become one of those tragic, boring would-never people.

Main character Clio is a lot. She’s in her mid-twenties, a highly successful stylist and influencer who revels in her good looks, appeal, and life-of-the-party vibe. She’s highly curated, always down for a good time. Clio’s party lifestyle comes to a screeching halt when her two older sisters call to tell her that Alexandra has died… Alexandra being the mother who was cut out of their lives when Clio was a young child, the abusive, addicted woman who wrote a scandalous book about demons and lost custody completely after endangering the girls one too many times.

Clio’s sisters Leda and Daphne don’t seem particularly affected by news of Alex’s death, but Clio decides that she’s going to the funeral, a woo-woo affair hosted by an occult society in Connecticut. There, she meets with Alex’s sister and is informed that Alex has left the girls their childhood home, which they didn’t even realize she still owned.

The house is a physical disaster, and what’s more, it was the main focus of Alex’s book, which the girls all promised their father they’d never read. Once again, Leda and Daphne want nothing to do with it, but Clio sees the potential for exposure. Home reno and demo reels are huge! She can do a whole series on before and after as she flips the house and makes it gorgeous enough to suit her standards.

Things go sideways almost from the start. The house is, well, kind of gross and dirty. There are mice. And unexplained sounds. But Clio is sure that her plan is worth it. Then she finds a battered old copy of her mother’s book, with handwritten annotations from Alex to Clio. Soon, unwanted memories creep in, presenting very different versions of the events Clio thought she understood. She’s forced to question the main narratives of her life and to wonder: Was Alex really as crazy and abusive as she’s been told all her life? Or could there possibly be a shred of truth in her rantings about demons and possession?

Play Nice goes from creepy to violent to gross-out horror throughout the course of the book, escalating to an incredibly disturbing climax. Meanwhile, the family itself is rocked to its core as old secrets are revealed and certain betrayals and lies come to light.

Clio is hard to like, and is not exactly a reliable narrator. She’s plagued by questionable or repressed memories, and prefers the image of herself that she’s created to any harder looks in the mirror.

I sound bratty and resentful, which is weird, because i swear I’m only one of those things.

She’s used to getting her way, assumes her role as the family favorite is deserved, and causes some of her own problems through her refusal to listen to anyone else.

The sky is blue and cloudless, the sun high and yellow, and the entire world is incapable of telling me no. It makes me feel like a god. Powerful, bored, dangerous.

An underlying theme of Play Nice is the need — craving — for attention. This is clearly what drives Clio’s career and social life. But, as we learn, it’s also vital to the demon.

“… But the demon is real, Clio. You now that now. And it’s dangerous. Its attachment to you is profound.”

Part of me is flattered, because I love attention. We have that in common, the demon and me. I like being the favorite. This part of me feels an allegiance to it. A kinship.

This book has some truly crazy elements, and reading it can be vertigo-inducing, as we slingshot from Clio’s narration to passages from Alex’s book, to scenes of confrontations with her father and sisters that make Clio (and we readers) wonder which version of reality contains the actual truth — if any do.

Play Nice is a disturbing, scary read, leavened by Rachel Harrison’s excellent writing and healthy doses of humor and smart-ass commentary. I’m a big fan of this author’s books, and enjoyed this one, but not as much as some of her others (Such Sharp Teeth, Cackle, Black Sheep) which I consider true favorites.

If you’re open to creepy, icky moments and skin-crawling scary bits, and enjoy reading about highly caustic and dysfunctional families, then Play Nice might be the book for you! Really, I don’t believe you can go wrong with any Rachel Harrison book. I’m already looking forward to whatever she writes next.

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