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bladeaok's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
david_agranoff's review against another edition
5.0
Haunt is a strange and beautiful LA noir that feels to me like a lost David Lynch movie with just a hint of dark supernatural underpinnings. First conceived as a very adult choose your own adventure novel Bahr does amazing things with the plot of this novel using the various choices that you as the reader might consider and showing you the various paths this story takes.
Told mostly in second person “you” are different shades of the main character at times working in a office, at times running to the Caribbean to be a beach bum musician but mostly you are interested in solving the suicide of Sarah, who you believe who died in her apartment. Why so interested? She haunts you. Might be the woman of your dreams, and worst of all she is dead.
This novel won the bizarro writers association’s wonderland award for best novel and it deserves it because it is indeed like reading your way through a hall of mirrors. It is a cool looking and formatted paperback that adds to atmosphere of the novel.
Laura Lee Bahr has a strong and unique voice that drips off these pages. Thankfully the universe put her in a friendship with Splatterpunk legend John Skipp who was the right champion for this book. As bizarro as this book is it very likely would have left most publishers scratching their heads.
There is a part early in the novel about the haunted nature of a typewriter and the sound of it clicking away. I loved that passage, that reminded me of my childhood hearing my mother’s typewriter clicking away. There are creepy moments, and laugh out loud moments. A great reading experience for anyone who likes to have a strange trip.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
I’m not sure if I even liked this book but I’m fascinated by it.
I’ve never tried bizarro fiction. It’s not a genre that appeals to me. But when I saw this on a list of weird crime novels from the irreplaceable CrimeReads.com website, I figured I’d give it a chance since I love LA noirs. I went in with low expectations, knowing this isn’t the kind of thing I normally read.
And while I don’t have a desire to try more bizarro fiction, I really enjoyed the writing of Laura Lee Bahr. She’s got excellent prose and while I had no idea what was going on half the time, even to the end, I still couldn’t wait to read it because she’s so talented. When you’re tossing out comfort for the sake of turning pages, that’s when you know you’ve found a good writer.
Trying to summarize this is impossible but I guess it’s kind of about a woman who committed suicide in a bathtub in Los Angeles. She’s perhaps famous. A journalist is trying to write about her. A third guy, whose perspective is written in the second person, lives in her old apartment. And there’s a bunch of wacky, hallucinatory stuff that happens. Or maybe happens. Or doesn’t happen at all.
Reading this reminded me of Roger Ebert’s glowing review of Mulholland Drive: “The movie is hypnotic; we’re drawn along as if one thing leads to another–but nothing leads anywhere, and that’s even before the characters start to fracture and recombine like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope. Mulholland Drive isn’t like Memento, where if you watch it closely enough, you can hope to explain the mystery. There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery.”
That totally explains this book. It’s like reading a novelized David Lynch screenplay written by a competent author. I don’t know if I’d recommend this to anyone but if you are indeed curious, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
I’ve never tried bizarro fiction. It’s not a genre that appeals to me. But when I saw this on a list of weird crime novels from the irreplaceable CrimeReads.com website, I figured I’d give it a chance since I love LA noirs. I went in with low expectations, knowing this isn’t the kind of thing I normally read.
And while I don’t have a desire to try more bizarro fiction, I really enjoyed the writing of Laura Lee Bahr. She’s got excellent prose and while I had no idea what was going on half the time, even to the end, I still couldn’t wait to read it because she’s so talented. When you’re tossing out comfort for the sake of turning pages, that’s when you know you’ve found a good writer.
Trying to summarize this is impossible but I guess it’s kind of about a woman who committed suicide in a bathtub in Los Angeles. She’s perhaps famous. A journalist is trying to write about her. A third guy, whose perspective is written in the second person, lives in her old apartment. And there’s a bunch of wacky, hallucinatory stuff that happens. Or maybe happens. Or doesn’t happen at all.
Reading this reminded me of Roger Ebert’s glowing review of Mulholland Drive: “The movie is hypnotic; we’re drawn along as if one thing leads to another–but nothing leads anywhere, and that’s even before the characters start to fracture and recombine like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope. Mulholland Drive isn’t like Memento, where if you watch it closely enough, you can hope to explain the mystery. There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery.”
That totally explains this book. It’s like reading a novelized David Lynch screenplay written by a competent author. I don’t know if I’d recommend this to anyone but if you are indeed curious, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
ccopeland28's review against another edition
2.0
I love books that leave me thinking WTF did I just read?!?! This one did that, but not in the way I had hoped it would.
It made me think about watching Twin Peaks so many years ago. I could not wait to see the insanity that lay ahead of me, and then once I saw it I was confused and unsatisfied. Same here.
It made me think about watching Twin Peaks so many years ago. I could not wait to see the insanity that lay ahead of me, and then once I saw it I was confused and unsatisfied. Same here.
petra_reads's review against another edition
5.0
My original Haunt audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
First off, Haunt was totally different from anything I’ve ever read or listened to before. I am not really confident I can write an appropriate review for this. To start with, I am actually not sure I “got” it, if in fact there is anything to “get”. It totally messed with my head. At 15% through, I was considering giving up because I was so baffled, but the writing style and the narration were so good, I had to keep going. However, I had to stop doing the usual activities one does when listening to audiobooks to focus simply on listening. I am really glad I did because by the half way mark, I was totally hooked.
Haunt is the story of three people, two male and one female. It’s a story about a spirit (or a ghost?) and the mystery surrounding its death. It’s written partly in third person perspective and partly in the second person, so You are involved. And You are given some choices (kind of). It’s not chronological, so there are shifts in time and there are also shifts in perspectives. Sounds like chaos? Amazingly, the author, Laura Lee Bahr, really pulled it off, and the less I tried to figure it all out and the more I just went along with it, the more I enjoyed it. There were some laugh-out-loud moments, there was some sadness, there was some romance (kind of), there was mystery. It was mind bending.
Haunt is categorized as Bizzaro Fiction and won the 2011 Wonderland Book Award for Novel of the Year. It’s Laura Lee Bahr’s debut novel, and she narrates part of the audio book herself. She’s a great writer, and she was also a brilliant narrator.
The male narrators sounded very similar to me. They were excellent, no complaints at all, but I kept wondering whether voices that were a bit more distinguishable would have eased my confusion at times. There were no issues with the quality of the production. In fact, this was one of a few productions where I thought the sound effects and music were a useful addition rather than an annoyance. I’ve never listened to an audiobook twice before, but I intend to with this one after I’ve got hold of a copy of the Kindle edition first (this would have been great as a Whyspersync).
I don’t think Haunt is a book for everyone. There’s strong language and some sex scenes. But if you are willing to try something that is completely different, totally surreal, dark but also really humorous, then you are in for a unique ride with this one.
Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com
First off, Haunt was totally different from anything I’ve ever read or listened to before. I am not really confident I can write an appropriate review for this. To start with, I am actually not sure I “got” it, if in fact there is anything to “get”. It totally messed with my head. At 15% through, I was considering giving up because I was so baffled, but the writing style and the narration were so good, I had to keep going. However, I had to stop doing the usual activities one does when listening to audiobooks to focus simply on listening. I am really glad I did because by the half way mark, I was totally hooked.
Haunt is the story of three people, two male and one female. It’s a story about a spirit (or a ghost?) and the mystery surrounding its death. It’s written partly in third person perspective and partly in the second person, so You are involved. And You are given some choices (kind of). It’s not chronological, so there are shifts in time and there are also shifts in perspectives. Sounds like chaos? Amazingly, the author, Laura Lee Bahr, really pulled it off, and the less I tried to figure it all out and the more I just went along with it, the more I enjoyed it. There were some laugh-out-loud moments, there was some sadness, there was some romance (kind of), there was mystery. It was mind bending.
Haunt is categorized as Bizzaro Fiction and won the 2011 Wonderland Book Award for Novel of the Year. It’s Laura Lee Bahr’s debut novel, and she narrates part of the audio book herself. She’s a great writer, and she was also a brilliant narrator.
The male narrators sounded very similar to me. They were excellent, no complaints at all, but I kept wondering whether voices that were a bit more distinguishable would have eased my confusion at times. There were no issues with the quality of the production. In fact, this was one of a few productions where I thought the sound effects and music were a useful addition rather than an annoyance. I’ve never listened to an audiobook twice before, but I intend to with this one after I’ve got hold of a copy of the Kindle edition first (this would have been great as a Whyspersync).
I don’t think Haunt is a book for everyone. There’s strong language and some sex scenes. But if you are willing to try something that is completely different, totally surreal, dark but also really humorous, then you are in for a unique ride with this one.
Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com
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