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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Cannibalism
It was like being two people, really-the child and the adult. Whenever he thought about Mother, he became a child again, with a child's vocabulary, frames of reference, and emotional reactions. But when he was by himself--not actually by himself, but off in a book--he was a mature individual. Mature enough to understand that he might even be the victim of a mild form of schizophrenia, most likely some form of borderline neurosis.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Enough fun differences that wouldn’t have worked well for the movie and of course the internal monologues of not just Norman but the others is nice to flesh things out.
It was funny listening to the Hitchcock/Truffaut conversations and hear Truffaut slam the book, he’s like “it’s very poor, worse than bad, I’m surprised it was written frankly it’s so absurd and almost dishonest the way he talks to the mother in that - but it translate well to cinema”. And I see his point, he does directly interact with her, but he also the passage I quoted is just one of a handful that scream unreliable narrator, so I didn’t get too fussed.
Anyway here’s another fun quote:
“I brought Mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see-going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave. She'd been shut up in that coffin for such a long time that at first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn't, of course. She couldn't be. Or else she wouldn't have been able to communicate with me when I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive her. There are ways, you know, even if some folks call it magic.
Magic- that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it's a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force, too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on, off and on. I'd turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again.
Do you understand me?"
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Enough fun differences that wouldn’t have worked well for the movie and of course the internal monologues of not just Norman but the others is nice to flesh things out.
It was funny listening to the Hitchcock/Truffaut conversations and hear Truffaut slam the book, he’s like “it’s very poor, worse than bad, I’m surprised it was written frankly it’s so absurd and almost dishonest the way he talks to the mother in that - but it translate well to cinema”. And I see his point, he does directly interact with her, but he also the passage I quoted is just one of a handful that scream unreliable narrator, so I didn’t get too fussed.
Anyway here’s another fun quote:
“I brought Mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see-going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave. She'd been shut up in that coffin for such a long time that at first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn't, of course. She couldn't be. Or else she wouldn't have been able to communicate with me when I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive her. There are ways, you know, even if some folks call it magic.
Magic- that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it's a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force, too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on, off and on. I'd turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again.
Do you understand me?"
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol
Minor: Vomit
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The brilliant Hitchcock movie followed this book closely. The book is good fun too, a tidy thriller.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
fast-paced
Read this in one sitting—a quick, no-nonsense thriller that’s easy to get through in a day. Even with knowing the plot twist the suspense was nicely done and I appreciated how it kept the reader questioning the truth. I wish the action scenes had been longer and more detailed and that the characters of Lila and Sam had been more fleshed out!
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Having seen the movie SO many times, there was no mystery so that element did nothing for me. But, I bet when the book was published, the twist was very shocking as was the film version when it was released. But, even though though the mystery was gone, it was still a really good book and one I would recommend to anyone wanting to experience the inspiration for the popular Hitchcock movie.