Reviews

loved it. very easy to read classic, still with so much metaphorically going on. themes of class consciousness, consumption, food, feminism, occult symbolism, youth and crime, true crime/tragedy and spectacle, entitlement and access to resources and so much more. not quite 5 stars because i would’ve liked more on the sisters exploring their complicated grief (?) for their family, merricat’s motivations to commit her crime from her perspective and her time in the orphanage missing out on her sisters trial, and why her sister even took the public blame for all that (maybe because she was purposefully spared?) but i also like that it’s up for interpretation. kind of goes with Shirley Jackson’s whole thing, the readers really aren’t entitled to that from the sisters. we’re shirley jackson stans now.

kinzo103's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

This story is very exemplary of Shirley Jackson’s writing. This is a different twist on her common themes of class identities, ostracism, and public persecution. I appreciated the elements of the burden of domesticity, agoraphobia, and obsessive compulsive thinking. Jackson has a distinct way of writing about people that adds to the tone of the story but can feel like it’s adding a lot of words with no plot advancement, and this story definitely had that element. While it felt very slow initially, things picked up about 30% of the way and I really enjoyed the character exploration throughout.

phantomphalanges's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

5.0

sterlingisreading's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

5.0

bookshelfbyjess's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

rereader33's review against another edition

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2.0

October Spooky Reads Challenge
Prompt: Read a horror novel by an author you've never read before

I am going to be quite the contrarian here, but this book was pretty disappointing. Maybe it's because it's been talked about so much, gotten such good reviews, and was written by THE Shirley Jackson that I had such high hopes, but in the end I thought this story was meh at best.

My biggest issues were twofold: I wasn't sure what the message was supposed to be (and the ending made that more confusing) and scenes jumped around so much throughout chapters that I was often left confused as to what was going on. If the intent was to leave the reader disoriented, then Jackson did her job well, but often I would have to go back and read whole paragraphs just to figure out what was going on and whether we were in the past or present. And yeah, I have no idea what I was suppose to glean message-wise with this story, other than people are assholes. Which I don't need a fictional story to tell me, I experience enough of them in real life to know that.

I will say, Jackson's writing, pacing, and mastery of suspense are top-notch. I may not have enjoyed the story itself, but I was certainly hooked from page one and just HAD to know what happened next.

Kind of a downer review, I know, but I did have high expectations for this novel and was let down. I will give Jackson's other works a read because I do love her writing and suspense, but this was disappointing. It's a quick read, though, so if you want to give it a shot, go for it. It won't take you long.

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