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A review by caitybell
House of Furies by Madeleine Roux
3.0
This book was one of the rare times I totally judged a book by its cover. Its gorgeous, and haunting, and dark looking. So, I purchased it. Also, Furies? I love Furies in mythology, so yeah, I didn’t even read the back before I handed over my card.
The quick rundown of the story is as such: Louisa is a runaway, trying to escape her neglected life at a horrid boarding school. While on the streets, performing small fortune tricks to get enough pennies to eat, she is approached by a crone who–through a series of sporadic events–convinces her to come to Coldthistle House. Louisa is given a job, working at the boarding house, but she soon discovers there is something dark and foreboding living in and surrounding Coldthistle, and the house’s owner and workers are enacting their own version of judge-jury-and executioner.
Let me first start by saying the atmosphere that Madeleine Roux writes, and the overall aesthetic of the book (including its gorgeous design) is wonderful. Dark and ominous, Coldthistle is a mystery wrapped in shadows and secrets. But beyond that, I was severely disappointed all around.
Louisa is utterly bland and most of the time annoying in her prudish and bleak ways. Her thought process is lengthily written out, in fact most of the book is just Lousia telling us how she feels. And feels. And feels. So many pages dedicated to her explaining herself (instead of just showing us) that I usually dozed off as I was reading and couldn’t remember what I had just read. Nor did I particularly care enough to go back and re-read parts like that. She constantly contradicts herself, and honestly, if you took her out of the story, everything probably would have happened without her the same way.
Roux cooks up a whimsical and ominous atmosphere, there’s no doubt, but she never goes beyond that–feeling. There are plenty of times where something was building in the story, something dark was coming and then we would reach the pinnacle of the moment aaaannndddd … it would fall short and Roux would back track. This happened again and again and by doing this the whole book gives off the same feeling while reading it the entire time. What I mean to say is, the stakes throughout the book were always just so–never did I feel scared, worried, saddened by anything because Roux held back so much, constantly pulled back, that all scenes felt the same. Whether it was Louisa talking to someone about the weather, or her facing down the deadly creatures that live within the house–there was no emotional change. This book is over 400 pages, and the only time Roux doesn’t pull back from a powerful moment, is the last thirty pages. But by that time so much suddenly explodes it seemed rushed and confusing, cheaply written.
Also, if you are like me and need romance within the story, consider yourself warned. There is zero romance. Friendship and acceptance are the main plot advances here, but even then, its weakly done.
So I have all of these negative opinions on the book, you may be asking why I gave it 3 stars? Well, though the books pace was terrible, the characters surface level and weakly developed, the book itself is well written. If that makes any sense. Madeleine Roux is a talented and clear writer, just for a book that was character driven, it fell short on giving me driven characters.
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The quick rundown of the story is as such: Louisa is a runaway, trying to escape her neglected life at a horrid boarding school. While on the streets, performing small fortune tricks to get enough pennies to eat, she is approached by a crone who–through a series of sporadic events–convinces her to come to Coldthistle House. Louisa is given a job, working at the boarding house, but she soon discovers there is something dark and foreboding living in and surrounding Coldthistle, and the house’s owner and workers are enacting their own version of judge-jury-and executioner.
Let me first start by saying the atmosphere that Madeleine Roux writes, and the overall aesthetic of the book (including its gorgeous design) is wonderful. Dark and ominous, Coldthistle is a mystery wrapped in shadows and secrets. But beyond that, I was severely disappointed all around.
Louisa is utterly bland and most of the time annoying in her prudish and bleak ways. Her thought process is lengthily written out, in fact most of the book is just Lousia telling us how she feels. And feels. And feels. So many pages dedicated to her explaining herself (instead of just showing us) that I usually dozed off as I was reading and couldn’t remember what I had just read. Nor did I particularly care enough to go back and re-read parts like that. She constantly contradicts herself, and honestly, if you took her out of the story, everything probably would have happened without her the same way.
Roux cooks up a whimsical and ominous atmosphere, there’s no doubt, but she never goes beyond that–feeling. There are plenty of times where something was building in the story, something dark was coming and then we would reach the pinnacle of the moment aaaannndddd … it would fall short and Roux would back track. This happened again and again and by doing this the whole book gives off the same feeling while reading it the entire time. What I mean to say is, the stakes throughout the book were always just so–never did I feel scared, worried, saddened by anything because Roux held back so much, constantly pulled back, that all scenes felt the same. Whether it was Louisa talking to someone about the weather, or her facing down the deadly creatures that live within the house–there was no emotional change. This book is over 400 pages, and the only time Roux doesn’t pull back from a powerful moment, is the last thirty pages. But by that time so much suddenly explodes it seemed rushed and confusing, cheaply written.
Also, if you are like me and need romance within the story, consider yourself warned. There is zero romance. Friendship and acceptance are the main plot advances here, but even then, its weakly done.
So I have all of these negative opinions on the book, you may be asking why I gave it 3 stars? Well, though the books pace was terrible, the characters surface level and weakly developed, the book itself is well written. If that makes any sense. Madeleine Roux is a talented and clear writer, just for a book that was character driven, it fell short on giving me driven characters.
FOLLOW ME FOR MORE BOOKISH THINGS AND REVIEWS!
tumblr: bah-ram-ewe
instagram: brutal.reads