Reviews

The Picture in the House by H.P. Lovecraft

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qalminator's review against another edition

3.0

Good setup; cheesy ending. I do find the idea that a picture in a book could cause the right (wrong?) sort of person to become a cannibal rather entertaining, but if you're going to go there, at least do something with it, rather than obliterate the scene with a narratively convenient lightning bolt.

fachrinaa's review

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4.0

octavia_cade's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

2.0

Most of this short story was genuinely creepy, which is something I don't often feel about Lovecraft's work. The depiction of that old bigot, increasingly sympathetic to, and taking on the characteristics of, the distant peoples he was obsessing over, is disturbing. (Ironic, too, given that's how I often picture Lovecraft himself, whipped up into a frenzy over all the things that scared him.) I might have given it three stars just for that. However, the ending is terrible. It's a total cop-out. I don't know what old H.P.'s intentions were, but it reads to me as if he ran out of ideas and didn't know how to end the story and so just gave up.

What a waste of that effective characterisation.

colonel_adams's review

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dark mysterious tense 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? No

2.0

hendejos's review

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dark medium-paced

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

3.0

isauldur's review

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4.0

Reminiscent in a sense of Poe's works.

hikio123's review

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dark tense 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? No

3.25

The plot twist is really obvious, but it doesn't make it spooky. I really liked it, but I can't bring myself to raise it to a 4 because of the really racist comments in the story that were not only towards the referenced black people (though that's bad enough).