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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
"Wylding Hall" was a fun, spooky novella. I loved the mystery surrounding the band and their time at Wylding Hall. I so wish it were real and absolutely would buy the album. Hand does a great job of immersing you in the story, time, and characters. This one is short enough to revisit a few times.
dark
emotional
fast-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
I really want to love Elizabeth Hand, but I keep not really liking her books. Wylding Hall is atmospheric, but tiresomely predictable.
I love epistolary storytelling so I may be biased but I really enjoyed this!
The author did a great job of slowly filling in the cracks for the reader to piece together what happened from multiple people who, separately, each had an incomplete history of what happened.
The author did a great job of slowly filling in the cracks for the reader to piece together what happened from multiple people who, separately, each had an incomplete history of what happened.
This book is brilliant in more ways than one. A modern day Haunting of Hill House, the story is equal parts poetry and compelling mystery. It's stylish and fun, and undeniably original. Fans of the film Midsommar and the novels of Adam Nevill will be right at home in Wylding Hall.
It was fun but I didn’t find it very compelling. You know what happens at the beginning due the the way the story is presented. Interviews of the surviving band members tell their story of that one summer spent at Wylding Hall as they tried to write new songs for a new album band how one of the band members disappeared.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It didn’t spook me (if you’re familiar with a specific old British tradition, you figure things out pretty quickly), hence the 3 stars, but I did enjoy it
Wonderfully creepy... in parts, but the book makes you wait for it. Documentary-style novel about an English psychedelic folk band that holes up in a sprawling ancient cottage to write their next album. They find inspiration, and something finds them.
The portrayal of the early-70s counterculture and music scene is so spot-on, it feels like real history. Clearly, Jimmy Page was a touchstone for this tale.
There are six or eight narrator characters, and the viewpoint switches often. The voices aren't distinct enough that we needed so many, and sometimes it gets frustrating, hearing about the same events over and over from different people.
Not a perfect book, but a great read if you like some rock history with your ghost story.
The portrayal of the early-70s counterculture and music scene is so spot-on, it feels like real history. Clearly, Jimmy Page was a touchstone for this tale.
There are six or eight narrator characters, and the viewpoint switches often. The voices aren't distinct enough that we needed so many, and sometimes it gets frustrating, hearing about the same events over and over from different people.
Not a perfect book, but a great read if you like some rock history with your ghost story.
Really hard to pitch this one, but I think "Rashomon has a baby with The Shining and the midwife is Naked Lunch" might clear the bar. But Wylding Hall is so short and inconclusive that I'm hesitant to compare it to anything else because it's so unashamedly itself that it's difficult to summarize in comparison with other stuff. If you like ghost stories, mysteries, or slow-burn narratives, then this is for you.