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3.14 AVERAGE
3.14 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
In horror, I like to root for my protagonists, unfortunately, Tom and Kate are annoying idiots. Kate is particularly annoying and to be honest, vile. Woman, stop nagging your friends to make a transatlantic move for fuck's sake!
The villain came out of nowhere, and I was just rolling my eyes at it.
The villain came out of nowhere, and I was just rolling my eyes at it.
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
fast-paced
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
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:
No
The audiobook mainly a certain DEEP VOICE used towards the end should be tried in a court of bookish peers for causing psychic damage (in the cringe way, not the fun spooky way).
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Well, I guess... that was a book that I read. There were definitely more cons than pros during my reading experience of The House of Last Resort, so I'll begin with those first.
Things that I disliked:
To begin, this book read like a really rough first draft. The pacing was all over the place, and I firmly believe that everything that happened could have been condensed down into a novella of around 120-150 pages. There was no reason this book needed to be almost 300 pages long, especially when some of the same ideas or thoughts were reiterated over and over again (i.e. "this move was a fresh start for both of them"; "Kate thought of Sicily as a new world. A new life."; "this move had been meant to be a new beginning"). Like, we get it already. Tell me something I don't know.
The two main characters, Tom and Kate, are your typical clueless Americans moving to a new country and don't bother to learn the language, (which really became a hinderance in the latter half of the book, when they literally had to have an additional character in the scene to translate everything). The two of them are pretty unlikeable (privileged, self-righteous, etc.) and I had a hard time connecting with anything they said or did. Like, in one scene, they genuinely get upset with their friends for not dropping everything to move out to Italy with them, and then praise themselves for being so brave and awesome for making the leap themselves.
Another scene where Kate's privilege basically leapt off the page and slapped me in the face was when she tried to convince here black friend, Belinda, that because there's one other black couple from Senegal living in this rural Sicilian town, she won't have to contend with as much racism as she does back in America. Like... excuse me, what?? You cannot be serious right now.
I basically hated Kate from that point on and she does nothing in this book to redeem herself. She's abrasive (literally calls a priest a "useless asshole") and selfish (doesn't tell a friend that his husband is injured after an earthquake because "if he was willing to put his family's safety over [needing to fix] the ceiling in the catacombs, he would have already done so") and just so, so deluded (wants to turn their sleepy Italian town into a tourist location, using the catacombs with actual mummies for profit, but balks at the idea of using her historical home for the same purpose??).
Tom is an idiot, but Kate was just vile.
Also, the word "piss" and the description of "piss-yellow eyes" were used wayyyy to many times. Like, use another word for yellow, my guy. Golden. Wheat. Egg Yolk. Anything but piss yellow, I beg.
Things I liked:
The creepy locked door at the end of their upstairs hallway that creaked open and slammed shut inexplicably... that was unnerving. (Like, give me a whole novella about a locked door that mysteriously opens and closes when the main characters aren't looking.)
That was it. That was all I liked. :/
To conclude, The House of Last Resort suffered from a lot of issues, but one of the biggest problems is that for a book that's almost 300 pages long, it was so boring. Nothing happened for almost three-quarters of the book, and then when there was action happening, it was so dumb and unbelievable that it pulled me right out of the story. It also committed the cardinal sin of having a really interesting premise and then squandering it almost immediately; add a dash of cheesy dialogue, and couple of obnoxious characters, and you've got yourself a stinker. 2 stars.
Things that I disliked:
To begin, this book read like a really rough first draft. The pacing was all over the place, and I firmly believe that everything that happened could have been condensed down into a novella of around 120-150 pages. There was no reason this book needed to be almost 300 pages long, especially when some of the same ideas or thoughts were reiterated over and over again (i.e. "this move was a fresh start for both of them"; "Kate thought of Sicily as a new world. A new life."; "this move had been meant to be a new beginning"). Like, we get it already. Tell me something I don't know.
The two main characters, Tom and Kate, are your typical clueless Americans moving to a new country and don't bother to learn the language, (which really became a hinderance in the latter half of the book, when they literally had to have an additional character in the scene to translate everything). The two of them are pretty unlikeable (privileged, self-righteous, etc.) and I had a hard time connecting with anything they said or did. Like, in one scene, they genuinely get upset with their friends for not dropping everything to move out to Italy with them, and then praise themselves for being so brave and awesome for making the leap themselves.
Another scene where Kate's privilege basically leapt off the page and slapped me in the face was when she tried to convince here black friend, Belinda, that because there's one other black couple from Senegal living in this rural Sicilian town, she won't have to contend with as much racism as she does back in America. Like... excuse me, what?? You cannot be serious right now.
I basically hated Kate from that point on and she does nothing in this book to redeem herself. She's abrasive (literally calls a priest a "useless asshole") and selfish (doesn't tell a friend that his husband is injured after an earthquake because "if he was willing to put his family's safety over [needing to fix] the ceiling in the catacombs, he would have already done so") and just so, so deluded (wants to turn their sleepy Italian town into a tourist location, using the catacombs with actual mummies for profit, but balks at the idea of using her historical home for the same purpose??).
Tom is an idiot, but Kate was just vile.
Also, the word "piss" and the description of "piss-yellow eyes" were used wayyyy to many times. Like, use another word for yellow, my guy. Golden. Wheat. Egg Yolk. Anything but piss yellow, I beg.
Things I liked:
The creepy locked door at the end of their upstairs hallway that creaked open and slammed shut inexplicably... that was unnerving. (Like, give me a whole novella about a locked door that mysteriously opens and closes when the main characters aren't looking.)
That was it. That was all I liked. :/
To conclude, The House of Last Resort suffered from a lot of issues, but one of the biggest problems is that for a book that's almost 300 pages long, it was so boring. Nothing happened for almost three-quarters of the book, and then when there was action happening, it was so dumb and unbelievable that it pulled me right out of the story. It also committed the cardinal sin of having a really interesting premise and then squandering it almost immediately; add a dash of cheesy dialogue, and couple of obnoxious characters, and you've got yourself a stinker. 2 stars.