Reviews

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

rhiannonrose528's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

bookish_withsky's review

3.0

Eric Ross is a father in this book that is a bit down on his luck. He's been looking for ways to make money and moving in and out of hotels with this two daughters, Dess and Stacy. Fortunately, Eric eventually finds that there is a caretaker needed for a spite house - something I personally did not know anything about. This spite house is known to be haunted. If Eric can make it through a duration of time there, he could come out with a substantial amount of money. He learns quite a bit about the history of the house while he's there, including who built it and why it was built on that specific piece of land.
For a debut, this is pretty good. It doesn’t knock anything out of the park in my opinion, but it does set up a decent way to slowly build up. I was happy and a bit impressed. The story was interesting. The settling was great. I wasn’t overly fond of the ending, but I am excited to see how the author grows from here on. I wish there were some things clarified a bit better and that does appear to be the general opinion.

bribenish's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

amme_pyre's review

challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

This book took forever for me to read, but I can't judge the story for it. I think I was not in a horror mood when I started it, plus, I was reading it in physical form instead of the ebook. 
Anyway...it was a nice different take on a haunted house story. The reasonings for the hauntings were fresh and interesting. My only fault with it was some things remained unexplained. Granted, with horror stories that's nothing new.  

valchanelle's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

alanadcr's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

mon452's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

cmqsf's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

shawcrit's review

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

tatyanavogt's review

4.0

Now first off I have to admit that the haunted house aspect wasn't my favorite, I dont think the book was actually scary although it did have a couple of moments, and I do think some of the backstory was convoluted. But I had a great time reading it, I really really enjoyed the relationship between the father and his daughter, I liked some of the commentary and I liked a lot of the ideas. Objectively I feel like this should have a lower rating but I just really connected and enjoyed my experience.

I was lucky enough to be a gust host for the litterally dead book club discussion for this which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/live/NYi0rRTxYgI?feature=share