Reviews - Rent hus | The StoryGraph

1.02k reviews for:

Rent hus

Alia Trabucco Zerán

3.72 AVERAGE

tyyra_n's review against another edition

5.0

dark

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

gabbi_reads_books's review against another edition

4.0

I enjoyed this book a lot, but I was really surprised by the intense deja vu. “Clean” was in many ways an extended version of one of the chapters in “When Women Kill” by the same author. I was a little disappointed that I basically knew what the majority of the book would be like, but there ended up being more differences than I expected. Hearing the story from the POV of the accused killer directly addressing the reader/police added a nice amount of tension to the book. However, I didn’t like that it seemed like at least every few pages Estela had to make a remark like “oh you must think I’m going on a tangent but there are many beginnings” and so on. While ultimately I think they added to the book and didn’t really detract anything, it did get annoying pretty quick. I hope to read more from Trabucco Zerán in the future. I feel like her thoughts on classism and sexism in particular are well researched but still presented in a very novel and gripping way. That is to say that I think she’s great at writing both fiction AND nonfiction, so I hope she writes more of both.

Date Read: 01/02/25

catznbooks's review against another edition

3.75

challenging reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

blaumeise's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

madelinem1919's review against another edition

4.0

A very interesting format for a book - told in a conversation format from only from one perspective. The short chapters made it a quick read and I was excited to see where it went.

laurabsantiso's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jayla_hh's review against another edition

2.0

slow-paced

Loveable characters: No

Speeeed read for work. Maybe something is lost in translation but this was a really disappointing read. All of it felt pointless. The narrator kept going on tangents and swore they were important and then the tangent is about a fly that landed on her hand. There was so much that I wanted the book to lean more into and expand on, then just never did.

Content Warnings

ichigo's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

stephellen's review against another edition

3.0

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: No

chichio's review against another edition

3.5

mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This is a long story, my friends, as you’ll have worked out for yourselves. It predates me and you; it predates even my mama or yours. It’s a story born of a centuries-old tiredness and questions that presume too much. Or have any of you ever been asked if you feel tenderly towards your superiors? If you love your boss, your supervisor, the staff manager? I cleaned their house, dusted their furniture, made sure there was a hot plate of food waiting for them in the evenings. Those things have nothing to do with love.

Really enjoyed this and really enjoyed how this meandering account of the daughter’s death plays with your expectations. From page one right up until the end you’re made to believe that the maid in question is deeply frustrated by her employers and that, through some act or omission of her own, the child ended up dying. Rather,

the book instead does something so much more interesting. Yes, the maid is tired. Yes, the maid is frustrated. Yes, the maid was treated unfairly for years. No, that didn’t warp her morals enough to make her the villain of the story. Instead, all it did, was make her angry enough to protest

. For some people, this ending probably ended up being unsatisfactory, but I honestly appreciated it. It was a simple yet impactful way of interrogating how you, the reader, can be complicit when it comes to the vilification of the lower class.

Quick, insightful read with great translation and a pretty compelling narrative voice.

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