Actual Rating: 3.50 / 3.75.
The first half of my review is spoiler free, but the second half (clearly labeled) contains spoilers!

So here's the thing: "The Supernatural Enhancements" is a good book. A REALLY good book, in fact. I picked this up looking for something spooky, autumnal, and fresh, and this book provided all of that! The characters are quirky and interesting; the plot grabbed (and held) my attention thoroughly; the format is super cool- the story is told through audio recording transcripts, a diary, book excerpts, and more. There's even some "X-Files" references (did you hear that? That's the sound of me falling in love with Edgar Cantero).

The thing that really made me feel not-good thoughts about "The Supernatural Enhancements" was actually two things:
One- The ENDING?? I'm still a bit confused. I'm going to detail this confusion a bit more at the end of this review in a "spoilers" paragraph, but right now I'll just say that about the last 50 pages or so really starting spiraling out of my reading grasp a bit. I understand about 75% of what happened...but...that last 25% made me go, "HUH?!?" Also, I think the ghost part of the book was a bit lost in the fray. I wanted more closure with that.

Two- The book excerpts/ciphers. Okay, actually, the excerpts/ciphers were pretty cool... in MODERATION. This book contains excerpts from other "books" (all fictional books, I believe) that are part of the main character's research. But some of the excerpts were (s0rry!) boring. With a capital "B". It was mostly the ones later in the novel, but I felt like Cantero was replacing too much actual dialouge and characters interaction with these excerpts. Then there was the cipher. Oh my gosh, was it COOL...but it was again, difficult to follow at times! When A is cracking the main cipher, I really tried to learn along with him, but I felt as if I needed to take notes to even grasp it! I think this aspect would have been better executed if Cantero had used more "laymans" terms, or used a different way to explain how to crack the code.

So overall, it was a good book, and I think I'd even read this one again. I really enjoyed the mix of supernatual, cult, and Scooby-Doo-ish themes!
I'd highly recommend this as a Halloween read, too.

SPOILERS BELOW!!!

The ending: Okay. Wait. Who exactly is Betty?? Their aunt?? How old is she? What is Betty's connection to the Juggernaut again? Is Aunt Liza ANOTHER cult leader? Wait, she's connected to the Eye, too?!? WHAT? Can someone please explain the whole Betty thing to me??
This part confused me, and I feel a bit cheated. Like there was a cipher right in front of me, but Cantero refused to give me any bit of clues to work on decoding it!
Also, the murders that happen the night of the 21st and the ensuing chaos was, well, chaotic! I had some real difficulty following what was happening.

Lastly, I think there were FAR too many names to remember! There are 20 Eye members (and their respective code names!), the neighboors, the townsfolk, the lawyer, the psychatrist, the snowplow driver, the butler, and ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE DREAMS (granted, the latter didn't actually have names, but there were SO many of them!).
I kept confusing Caleb and Curtis. I didn't remember who the butler was until someone said their name AND the word "butler". I also forgot who the lawyer was when he showed up at the end and had to flip back in the book to find his name again. ( )

A compelling story about a secret society that meets once a year in a haunted house. This novel lags a bit in the middle, but then revs up quickly to a climactic finish with a twist that I didn't see coming. ( )

I discovered Cantero's writing when I came across a previous transformative work of their's -- _Meddling Kids_ which did such a fabulous job of combining the tropes of teenage investigators and Cthulu type mythos. So, once I read the premise of this book, I was very excited to read. Good choice it was.

This is a very very well done transformation of a particular set of horror tropes -- the protagonist who inherits the creepy house from the unknown relative, the weirdly secretive group who meet once a year and do Very Strange Things, the hints at esoteric and powerful knowledge.

So clever, so weird, so completely incomprehesible. very found footage creepy. loved it. The stylistic choice to work in combination of found writing with actual narration works really well. ( )

Such confusion! Obviously, this is a compelling book, given that I read it in about a day. And it's got super sweet cover art. But, the first third of the book and the other two-thirds are only connected in the loosest sort of way, and then the epilogue comes in and changes the state of play again. It's like a Gothic, cozy mystery, supernatural thriller mash-up with a smattering of haunted house. It's weird, and I like it okay, but I'm not sure that I trust it (because it feels like a set up, and I'm guessing this is the first in a series).

So, things to be aware of. 1) This is sort of a proto-epistolary novel. It's told through letters and diaries and video cameras and digital recorders. 2) It's set in the 90s for some inexplicable reason, and there is a lot of mention of 'The X-Files." 3) There are great swaths of information in here that you can just skip, like all of the cryptography stuff, and the academic paper/book extracts; the characters always neatly summarize everything for you. 4) There's one truly amazing character in this novel, and she's a mute, punk, Irish kid, and I love her.

This book really feels similar to Marisha Pessl's 'Night Film' except less creepy. And even though this book isn't my favorite, I know there are a lot of people who will love it. ( )

Well, I liked the beginning but it went in a completely different direction than I was thinking. Many questions were left unanswered. A sequel would be great. ( )