Reviews

Devil House by John Darnielle

Only show reviews with written explanations

reasselin's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Occasionally challenging to read, with writing styles and voices changing, Devil House was two different books for me - a times a page-turner, other times a chore.

Darnielle’s huge ambitions for the work payed off and both plot and general concepts from the book will stick with me.

toph821's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

2.0

tatyanavogt's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

Sooo, this book was a bit upsetting cause I was expecting some kind of haunted house story. A slow uncovering of history accompanied by spooking/scary happenings inside the house. I thought it was a horror book filled with dark histories and creepy connections.. Instead I got a slow boring and dry 'true crime' style novel that wasn't very engaging. (and I like true crime). I didn't get what I signed up for and what I got wasn't super interesting.

This is about a writer who buys a house with a troubling past so he can research the bad stuff that happened there. He talks to people and makes speculations on how things went down. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it if I realized thats what it was going to be about but in general it was pretty boring and I found myself drifting off constantly while reading.

haleyshaver's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

I didn't hate it but honestly it was kind of slow. I preferred reading about the woman who murdered two of her students because they broke into her apartment more than I enjoyed reading about the actual Devil House. When Darnielle was writing about the past of the Devil House I found myself speed reading through it just so I could get to the parts where they talk more about the teacher and her students and the lives they lived that brought them to the ending they got. The book also weirdly ended with a random narrator that we had never met before? I don't know, maybe this just wasn't my cup of tea.