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matasatan's review
2.0
Att ta en underbar klassiker och göra det till en bok där alla karaktärer är dumma i huvet - det gör mig besviken och arg. En besvikelse deluxe..
toosunnyouthere's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
oliviahayhoe's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
This book was dark, eerie, and suspenseful. I must admit I spent most of the book being confused. I was hoping it would be explained or resolved in some way but it wasn’t.
zachnachazel's review against another edition
2.0
Haiku Book Review.
I found this boring.
Shouldn't have watched the movie,
It ruined the book.
I found this boring.
Shouldn't have watched the movie,
It ruined the book.
bickleyhouse's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I discovered this book at the library (anyone surprised?) and when I saw that it was an "authorized" sequel to Shirely Jackson's classic The Haunting of Hill House, I immediately checked it out.
In this book, we investigate what happens when a group of self-absorbed theater people spend a few nights at Hill House, in hopes of reading and rehearsing a new play that our main "hero" has written. Holly and her girlfriend, Nisa, have been working on a play called Witching Night. As Holly was out for a drive, one day, she was drawn to turn off of the main road onto a rarely used side road, where she eventually wound up at the gates of Hill House. She got out and looked around a little and decided that, creepy as it seemed, it would be a perfect place for them, along with Stevie, another friend, and Amanda Greer, a famous actress who was slightly past her prime, to read and rehearse.
They ignored everyone's warnings. The realtor who now owns Hill House tried to talk Holly out of it, but went ahead and rented the house to her for two weeks. The first time Holly had driven up the road, a woman, who had been standing outside a double-wide trailer house, came toward her car with a raised knife and a somewhat wild, angry expression on her face. That woman, Evadne, turned out to be friends with Ainsley, the realtor, and aunt to Melissa, who was the woman who cleaned at Hill House every week. All of them sported the same ring on one of their fingers, made by Evadne.
Ms. Hand has done a marvelous job of continuing the legacy of Hill House. We learn in the acknowledgments that she had the blessing, encouragement, and suggestions from Laurence Jackson Hyman, Shirley's son and "literary executor." The psychological terror that ensues in this novel is equal to, and perhaps even surpasses that of the original book. As these four people spend time in this house, strange things happen. But they are things that makes the reader wonder, at first, is this house really haunted, or are these people just a little insane?
Time doesn't seem to work the same at Hill House, either. In all, they don't even spend two full nights in the house, but it doesn't seem to flow that way. To me, the reader, it seemed like more nights, but that's a trick that the house plays on people. And it has a way of making people not trust each other. As I said, these theater people were already self-absorbed, so it didn't take much psychological pushing for them to begin bickering among themselves and having negative thoughts about one another.
One thing I really liked about the layout of the story is that all of Holly's chapters were in first person, while everyone else's chapters, Nisa, Stevie, and Amanda, were in third person. And we spent ample time in all of their heads.
The last third or so (around 100 pages) of the story is where things really begin to act like a snowball rolling down a mountain. The pace picks up and doesn't slow down until the last chapter. The terror gets real, tempers flare, and the narcissism of each player comes to full fruition. One almost expected someone to crash into the tree at the turn in the road, again, but, you see, that tree had been cut down, as at least one other person had died from crashing into it. But then, how difficult would it have been for Hill House to grow it back?
One interesting detail . . . there is a large black hare that figures into this story, frequently. And every chapter in the book is headed by a simple drawing of a hare. Another interesting detail is that both Holly and Amanda have a strange death, from their past, in their immediate circle of influence.
I loved this book! I'm very glad that I read it, and even more glad that Elizabeth Hand was allowed to write it. I do believe Ms. Jackson would have been pleased.
In this book, we investigate what happens when a group of self-absorbed theater people spend a few nights at Hill House, in hopes of reading and rehearsing a new play that our main "hero" has written. Holly and her girlfriend, Nisa, have been working on a play called Witching Night. As Holly was out for a drive, one day, she was drawn to turn off of the main road onto a rarely used side road, where she eventually wound up at the gates of Hill House. She got out and looked around a little and decided that, creepy as it seemed, it would be a perfect place for them, along with Stevie, another friend, and Amanda Greer, a famous actress who was slightly past her prime, to read and rehearse.
They ignored everyone's warnings. The realtor who now owns Hill House tried to talk Holly out of it, but went ahead and rented the house to her for two weeks. The first time Holly had driven up the road, a woman, who had been standing outside a double-wide trailer house, came toward her car with a raised knife and a somewhat wild, angry expression on her face. That woman, Evadne, turned out to be friends with Ainsley, the realtor, and aunt to Melissa, who was the woman who cleaned at Hill House every week. All of them sported the same ring on one of their fingers, made by Evadne.
Ms. Hand has done a marvelous job of continuing the legacy of Hill House. We learn in the acknowledgments that she had the blessing, encouragement, and suggestions from Laurence Jackson Hyman, Shirley's son and "literary executor." The psychological terror that ensues in this novel is equal to, and perhaps even surpasses that of the original book. As these four people spend time in this house, strange things happen. But they are things that makes the reader wonder, at first, is this house really haunted, or are these people just a little insane?
Time doesn't seem to work the same at Hill House, either. In all, they don't even spend two full nights in the house, but it doesn't seem to flow that way. To me, the reader, it seemed like more nights, but that's a trick that the house plays on people. And it has a way of making people not trust each other. As I said, these theater people were already self-absorbed, so it didn't take much psychological pushing for them to begin bickering among themselves and having negative thoughts about one another.
One thing I really liked about the layout of the story is that all of Holly's chapters were in first person, while everyone else's chapters, Nisa, Stevie, and Amanda, were in third person. And we spent ample time in all of their heads.
The last third or so (around 100 pages) of the story is where things really begin to act like a snowball rolling down a mountain. The pace picks up and doesn't slow down until the last chapter. The terror gets real, tempers flare, and the narcissism of each player comes to full fruition. One almost expected someone to crash into the tree at the turn in the road, again, but, you see, that tree had been cut down, as at least one other person had died from crashing into it. But then, how difficult would it have been for Hill House to grow it back?
One interesting detail . . . there is a large black hare that figures into this story, frequently. And every chapter in the book is headed by a simple drawing of a hare. Another interesting detail is that both Holly and Amanda have a strange death, from their past, in their immediate circle of influence.
I loved this book! I'm very glad that I read it, and even more glad that Elizabeth Hand was allowed to write it. I do believe Ms. Jackson would have been pleased.
addyelk's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
small_alex's review
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Soooooooo....... this was underwhelming.... The opening is veryyyy slow (I'm talking almost 100 pages before they actually get to the house). We spent those pages getting to know two of our main characters. The problem? They are INSUFFERABLE oh my god. I eventually came to the conclusion that everyone in this book is intentionally unlikeable because there's really just no way I'm not meant to feel such strong disdain for them all. Every single one of them (maybeeee with the occasional exception of Stevie) is so selfish and self-absorbed that I was truly dumbfounded to discover that they were in their 30s, 40s, and 70s(? i dont remember the exact ages but they're ADULTS). SO someone lmk why they're all still stuck in the "world revolves around me" mentality of fucking 14 year olds.
The single plot decision of this book that I was actually happy about was killing off Nisa, but to be fully transparent, I wanted the house to eat them all. Every single one of them . I was rooting for the house the entire time. Was that the author's intention? At this point, I don't even know, because there were so many random plot holes and moments of missed potential. Like. The three locals really interested me. Evadne and Melissa and hell even Ainsley I guess. But we learned quite literally nothing about them. What's the significance of their rings? Why are they arguing about renting the house? Did they actually want to help? Literally what were their motivations? Why did Melissa even have to go and clean all the time when Evadne blatantly said that Melissa wasn't doing shit and the house shouldn't even be standing? If Ainsley is renting because she needs the money, why the fuck is she paying Melissa? AND why did she refund Holly??? Clearly she didn't have much of a conflict of morality here because she keeps renting the house to people! And why did she initially say no to Holly renting it?? What changed her mind?? And why the fuck does Evadne claim to be watching the house meanwhile she quite literally did not do SHIT to prevent or help all the MCs during their stay there????? What's the theme supposed to be with the hares? Bc Evadne called them "him" like ok so are you implying that it's the devil bc of the relevance to the play like why would you not expand on the hare situation?? They're just THERE and sure, they're creepy, but they don't DO anything!! Same deal with not lighting a fire. Why not?? Ainsley said not to, but they did, like, all the time, and it was fine. But Evadne said not to. Meanwhile Melissa TOLD THEM TO (I think?? Or was THAT Evadne?? Idk. It was one of them. It didn't even fucking matter). So. Wtf is going on. Like there are literally so many unanswered questions and all we got at the end was "we warned you" BITCH NO YOU DID NOT????? You said some weird cryptic shit and then hightailed it out of there! UGH. Annoying. Idk man I haven't read the OG hill house book yet but I've seen and read so many different adaptations of it at this point I feel like this book should've made more sense to me. Like am I just not getting it?? Idk.
Yeah anyway where was I? There's no plot. They rent a big creepy mansion, act bitchy to each other the entire time, rehearse their play LITERALLY ONCE, and then weird shit happens and the book ends. The ending portion had significantly better pacing, though the bar was pretty low. I liked the ending section as a whole, but the ending itself was so painfully underwhelming and gave us absolutely no answers to any of the questions we'd spent the entire book wondering about. If the house wanted Nisa, then why the fuck did they put the door in Stevie's room like??? And shouldn't he have wanted to share it with her?? Bc it didn't seem to want him. Like. He didn't fit.
This book is well-written in terms of writing style. I liked the way the creepy undertones grew throughout the book, and I thought the author did a decent job of building the suspense and ambiance as the story progressed. It got pretty spooky by the end. That's kind of the only good thing I have to say about this though. If I wasn't so invested in the possibility of the characters all dying, I would've DNFed (to reiterate, they really were just infuriating to have to read about). Knowing what I know now (that the ending was underwhelming and left me with more questions than answers), I should've DNFed. Like wtf was even the point of that epilogue? Ugh. Whatever.
The single plot decision of this book that I was actually happy about was
Yeah anyway where was I? There's no plot. They rent a big creepy mansion, act bitchy to each other the entire time, rehearse their play LITERALLY ONCE, and then weird shit happens and the book ends. The ending portion had significantly better pacing, though the bar was pretty low. I liked the ending section as a whole, but the ending itself was so painfully underwhelming and gave us absolutely no answers to any of the questions we'd spent the entire book wondering about.
This book is well-written in terms of writing style. I liked the way the creepy undertones grew throughout the book, and I thought the author did a decent job of building the suspense and ambiance as the story progressed. It got pretty spooky by the end. That's kind of the only good thing I have to say about this though. If I wasn't so invested in the possibility of the characters all dying, I would've DNFed (to reiterate, they really were just infuriating to have to read about). Knowing what I know now (that the ending was underwhelming and left me with more questions than answers), I should've DNFed. Like wtf was even the point of that epilogue? Ugh. Whatever.
thebriary's review against another edition
2.0
Characters that make you root for the evil house. If only it didn’t take so long to be properly introduced.