Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

6 reviews

chris_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25


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doomluz's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

I loved this. It took a while to build up, but the plot was interesting.

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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

3.5

I picked up this book because it was the March selection for the Literally Dead Book Club.
"The Spite House" follows a plethora of characters, but the story centralizes around Eric Ross. Eric is on the run from something haunting him in his past. He left his wife and has his two daughters along for the ride. He is desperately trying to make money as they run from town to town. He thinks his luck is finally turning around when he sees an advertisement to reside in this house and document any strange occurrences. But this house harbors decades old secrets and Eric quickly discovers that this may be a larger undertaking than he thought.
I was initially intrigued by this story because there are multiple mysteries going on. First, we do not know what Eric and his daughters are running from or why they are running. Second, we do not know what is going on at Spite House. It ended up taking me a LONG time to get into this story because it is so densely written. It may be closer to a novella in length, but it felt like I was reading a 500-page story. I also struggled because there are so many different characters and POVs to read from. I felt like just when I was becoming invested in one character's story, I was given a new character. This constant changing really took me out of the story. For a book this short in length, I wished we got less POVs. I think the story could have been just as strong with solely Eric's POV.
Once it was finally revealed what was going on, I was interested in the story once again. I really enjoyed the mystery that Eric was trying to hide about why they were running, and I ultimately enjoyed the resolution they reached as a family about how to handle it. The Spite House's mystery was a bit more traumatic I felt, but it was definitely engaging. My heart went out to everyone affected.
I had a very okay time reading this, and I am intrigued by Johnny Compton as an author. 

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ashtheaudiomancer's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.25

This is a fantastic twist on a classic haunted house story, with solid, vivid characters whose decisions made sense even in the face of certain doom. Johnny Compton has neatly solved the "Why would you want to live in a house you know is haunted?" question without resorting to everyday skepticism. My only complaint is I wish it was longer. There were a couple details about Eric's family history left unresolved and I could've done with just one more chapter wrapping those up. I understand why it ended where it did, I just wanted more! Definitely going to keep an eye on this author from now on.

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monsterofidaho's review against another edition

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

5.0

With an increasing number of relevant social thrillers to pick from, The Spite House is a masterful addition to the continually rising star that is the Black horror renaissance. Johnny Compton promises and delivers with a book that wholly deserves its comparison to Get Out. The Spite House, after all, is more than its 272 pages. It’s about the hypervigilance that comes with living in the world as a Black individual; family ties strained taut, starting to fray; and it’s about deep trauma passed down from generation to generation, compounding with each iteration. With differing points of view from chapter to chapter, Compton unfolds a network of characters who are all culpable when it comes to the horrors that take place in the Masson house. Even now that I’ve closed the book, there’s a piece of myself still rooted in this story; a piece that has taken up residence in the spite house on top of the hill.

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starrysteph's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The Spite House is a gothic horror tale revolving around parental love & protection, ancestral hauntings, and complicated karmic seeds.
 
We follow the Ross family (dad Eric and daughters Dess and Stacy) as they run from their mysterious past, desperate to improve their circumstances and find some stability. When an eccentric billionaire offers them a small fortune to stay inside a mysterious house and record potential hauntings, it’s too good of an offer to pass up. But of course everything isn’t quite so simple, and vengeful ghosts and complicated family histories soon intertwine in a deadly way.
 
If you tend to get irritated by horror story protagonists making absurd choices for no reason, you won’t find that here. The Ross family aren’t foolish risk-takers. They’re not intentionally charging into danger. They’re thoughtful and do safety drills. They’re logical and calculated. And they’re forced into the house out of desperation – which makes this story all the more compelling.
 
I enjoyed the multiple POVs, but could have gone without the one-offs of side characters and antagonizers. I would have appreciated being kept to a more limited viewpoint - so that I as the reader could uncover truths alongside the three Ross’, instead of being given reveals from the secret-keepers surrounding them. 
 
I thought the pacing + flow was very well done. However, I would have loved more scenes of action & atmospheric horror inside the house. We actually didn’t spend a whole lot of time between its walls. Additionally, the history of the house was well thought out, but became a bit convoluted. This was a 300 page book and a lot of info was squished in. 
 
Overall, this was an engaging read and a chilling story – I only wish the plotting & POVs were little less complicated and more expansiveness was given to the central family and terrifying spite house;
 
CW: death (incl. child death), gore, murder, child abuse, psychosis, war, racism, gun violence, mental illness, kidnapping, confinement
 
(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)


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