Reviews - The House of Last Resort

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

731 reviews for:

The House of Last Resort

Christopher Golden

3.14 AVERAGE

sophduncshep's review

2.0

dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

tashaw's review against another edition

2.25

dark

catsandcookies07's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

agnela's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

tracytho's review against another edition

2.0

emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

In a tone-deaf display of cultural imperialism, an insufferable couple, Kate and Tommy, move to Sicily, the homeland of Tommy's grandparents, who still live there. They purchased a house in a small, dying town (that nonetheless has a remarkable number of furniture shops, gelato cafes, and restaurants) for one euro with the understanding they will fix it up. They don’t speak Italian, so like stereotypical Americans, they ask that the Italians speak English. Ugh. (Did I mention the token Black BFF?)

They look forward to a slower life unlike the one they left behind in Boston. Sure, the house is a little creepy, and Tommy’s grandparents are weird, and there’s a snoopy lady who lives down the lane. But it will be an adventure; they’re two young, vibrant, and profoundly selfish people, and they’re going to live their dream no matter what. Lest they be limited by any sort of humility, they decide that the best thing for the town is for them to turn their local catacombs into a tourist attraction—to bring in the capitalist vibe they left behind because only two annoying Americans could possibly help this town. I wonder if turning a sacred space into something foreigners come leer at will end up being a bad idea?

It turns out their dream house has a not-previously-disclosed connection with the Catholic church that Kate and Tommy dismiss (any regular reader of horror knows where this is going), because—as they tell us over and over and over—they do NOT believe in any of that, they don’t believe in anything supernatural or religious, they don’t believe in any superstitions, nope, they’re purely rational and everyone else in this little town is an idiot. And priests? They’re treated with disrespect and disdain….until you actually NEED one.

I really wanted to like this book. It’s religious horror of the kind I typically enjoy. The writing wasn’t terrible, although it had far too much repetitive exposition. The book had more than a few shout-outs to The Exorcist, one of the greatest religious horror novels of all time. But this was not that, not even close. The first ¾ of the book were mostly Kate and Tommy telling themselves how none of this weirdness was real with a desperate sense of entitlement in a long, boring slog, followed by a mad rush to an unsurprsiing (but not entirely predictable) conclusion. I didn’t really care one way of the other by that point.

My biggest gripe about the book was just the overwhelming arrogance displayed by the main characters, and even worse, the author couched it in some warped idea of "love." They were so unlikeable, so selfish, so disrespectful to their new neighbors and culture, and so unwilling to accept alternative viewpoints that I was definitely rooting for the demons by the end.