Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Haunting of Hill House

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

172 reviews

karahildebrand's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Incredible transformative writing, conflicting and shifting character relationships, and vivid psychological torment make this book incredibly captivating and hard to put down. That is, it takes about half of the book for the actual haunting to begin which is kind of a drag to get through. The last third of the book is exceptionally good, giving you such a personal view of Eleanor’s deteriorating sanity and the other characters’ gradual exasperation towards her. Nothing is over explained, you really feel Eleanor’s state of being just from what she does and the simplistic thoughts that cross her mind. I love Eleanor as the main character lacking anything to leave Hill House to go back to, susceptible to the influence of the house because of her preexisting instability and desire for a home or something that’s truly hers. Despite her insecurities and rapid mood shifts I found myself feeling the way she felt about the other characters, infuriated at Theo’s selfish and cruel tendencies, and irritated at Luke constantly brushing her aside. It’s interesting to see the characters’ behaviors change as Eleanor’s perception of them changes and makes is clear that she is manipulating the world around her as she lives the story. The dialogue is interesting, with Mrs. Montague specifically it was amazing and i felt like I was hearing her so clearly as i read her lines, but there was something so off about how the rest of them spoke that I was a little perplexed by, even in the beginning of the novel before a lot of the spooky stuff happened. I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but it certainly creates a unique atmosphere. Overall a powerful, psychologically driven ghost story with a setting that becomes its own character. If you’re into lore or answers or unpredictable twists in your horror then you might not love this. If the first half had been condensed and there was a little bit more creativity put into the specific “haunting” incidents that happened i would give it 5 stars easily.

Content Warnings

rinitealeaf's review against another edition

5.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Content Warnings

cosmicsapphic's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

pitythechild's review against another edition

4.75

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

this book was genuinely quite terrifying—

eleanor’s descent into hill house-induced madness

scared the hell out of me. and the ending was nothing like i expected

Content Warnings

jbabbm's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Slow start but interesting development and ending. This is not a scary or horror book, at least in my opinion and the way I felt while reading it. Shirley Jackson did make a great job at writing this story.

If you are planning to read this because of the Netflix show, do know that this is a very different story with only some similarities and details they did decided to include in the series.

Content Warnings

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

“...wake up, she thought, wake up and be faithless. None of them will open their doors, she thought; they will sit inside, with the blankets pressed around them, shivering and wondering what is going to happen to them next; wake up, she thought, pounding on the doctor’s door; I dare you to open your door and come out to see me dancing in the hall of Hill House.”

TITLE—The Haunting of Hill House

AUTHOR—Shirley Jackson

PUBLISHED—1959

GENRE—gothic horror

SETTING—Hill House, seems perhaps meant to be at a time contemporary with the book’s publishing, in an intentionally anonymous area in the US

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—mental illness, haunted houses, paranormal activity

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—on this reread I have definitely decided to get the cup of stars quote as a tattoo somehow somewhere ❤️❤️; oh and “Fellow babe in the woods,” she said, “let’s go exploring.” is going to be the epigraph to my memoir. 😁

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a reread with one of my favorite bookstagram bookclubs and I definitely loved it at least twice as much as I did on my first reading. I picked up on SO much that I missed the first time around and 😚👌🏻 Jackson has written the *perfect* book.

It’s a little unsettling how perfect it is it, really, makes me feel like Jackson really *knew*. 😬 In particular I was struck by how much Eleanor’s experience depicts what it’s like to “lose your mind”, “go insane”, aka deal with neurodivergency and/or a mental illness. And especially dealing with it in front of people who don’t understand and don’t have any sympathy for the experience.

She also captures how it feels when what is so apparent to you is in fact something no one else sees, or of course, is willing to see. And, in the book, instead of helping Eleanor, the other characters end up making it worse through their actions, which, to a highly paranoid person, come across as bullying or harassment, even though I think in the case of each character, it is rather their own defense mechanisms (Luke’s humor, Theo’s snarkiness) in the face of their fears or discomforts that is making them act that way.

I really sympathized with how Eleanor was feeling the last day at breakfast—just the debilitating feeling of utter humiliation, dejection, and isolation after they see your illness exposed and you realize they just don’t understand and don’t care. ☹️ I think, in that sense, Hill House really operates as a metaphor for a “broken” mind. Obviously it means many different things to many different readers and scholars but on this particular reading of it for me that’s what really struck.

“Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don’t they stop me?”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // mental illness, suicide, bullying, gaslighting, paranoia, emotional abuse

Further Reading—

everything else Shirley Jackson has written
White is for Witching, by Helen Oyeyemi

Content Warnings

bwwilhelm's review against another edition

5.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is a slow-burner. It takes a while for things to start happening, but Shirley Jackson did a *fantastic* job of building tension. And, of course, once the ball gets rolling, it's a dead sprint right through to the last page.

Content Warnings