barbaraalfond 's review for:

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
3.0

This was rather like V-8 juice: an agglomeration of things that should be good for you—probably they are—but whirred in a blender, they become an indistinguishable hodgepodge. Wouldn’t a platter of fresh vegetables, at their peak, be just as healthy and so much more satisfying? As it is, this felt like one cup of Somerset Maugham’s memoirs, a pint of Old Filth ( if you know, you know), a quart of Chinese history, a gallon of police procedural, and a generous serving of extra-marital affairs. It was beautifully seasoned—er, beautifully written—but still, it was a lot to put in a blender.