A review by zoeelizabethk
The House of Drought by Dennis Mombauer

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I wish I had known more about Dennis Mombauer and The House of Drought before agreeing to review. I think if I'd known more I'd have known that this was not going to be for me. The House of Drought is a speculative fiction novella centered around a house that seems to be involved with strange events in the local area. I think that if you like odd speculative fiction that plays with storytelling, if you like unsettling horror, or you're a fan of The House of Leaves, there's a decent chance that you will appreciate The House of Drought.

However I'm not really into any of that. Like with House of Leaves, I can kinda appreciate what Mombauer is trying to do, but I don't enjoy it. I also found the storytelling style hard to follow. He dumps you into the story but then backs up and the story is told through almost episodic scenes from a couple different perspectives. But additionally there are several different timelines, each of which do this skip-hop-jump kind of framework. The author allows you to try to fill in the gaps to figure out what's really going on. It increases the unsettledness of the story since the story feels broken and creepy. But I mostly just found this frustrating since I didn't care about the story and didn't want to read.

All in all, I think there are probably people who are going to like this novella and appreciate it, but sadly I did not like it very much.

Thanks to Stelliform Press and Book Sirens for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.