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A review by small_alex
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Soooooooo....... this was underwhelming.... The opening is veryyyy slow (I'm talking almost 100 pages before they actually get to the house). We spent those pages getting to know two of our main characters. The problem? They are INSUFFERABLE oh my god. I eventually came to the conclusion that everyone in this book is intentionally unlikeable because there's really just no way I'm not meant to feel such strong disdain for them all. Every single one of them (maybeeee with the occasional exception of Stevie) is so selfish and self-absorbed that I was truly dumbfounded to discover that they were in their 30s, 40s, and 70s(? i dont remember the exact ages but they're ADULTS). SO someone lmk why they're all still stuck in the "world revolves around me" mentality of fucking 14 year olds.
The single plot decision of this book that I was actually happy about was killing off Nisa, but to be fully transparent, I wanted the house to eat them all. Every single one of them . I was rooting for the house the entire time. Was that the author's intention? At this point, I don't even know, because there were so many random plot holes and moments of missed potential. Like. The three locals really interested me. Evadne and Melissa and hell even Ainsley I guess. But we learned quite literally nothing about them. What's the significance of their rings? Why are they arguing about renting the house? Did they actually want to help? Literally what were their motivations? Why did Melissa even have to go and clean all the time when Evadne blatantly said that Melissa wasn't doing shit and the house shouldn't even be standing? If Ainsley is renting because she needs the money, why the fuck is she paying Melissa? AND why did she refund Holly??? Clearly she didn't have much of a conflict of morality here because she keeps renting the house to people! And why did she initially say no to Holly renting it?? What changed her mind?? And why the fuck does Evadne claim to be watching the house meanwhile she quite literally did not do SHIT to prevent or help all the MCs during their stay there????? What's the theme supposed to be with the hares? Bc Evadne called them "him" like ok so are you implying that it's the devil bc of the relevance to the play like why would you not expand on the hare situation?? They're just THERE and sure, they're creepy, but they don't DO anything!! Same deal with not lighting a fire. Why not?? Ainsley said not to, but they did, like, all the time, and it was fine. But Evadne said not to. Meanwhile Melissa TOLD THEM TO (I think?? Or was THAT Evadne?? Idk. It was one of them. It didn't even fucking matter). So. Wtf is going on. Like there are literally so many unanswered questions and all we got at the end was "we warned you" BITCH NO YOU DID NOT????? You said some weird cryptic shit and then hightailed it out of there! UGH. Annoying. Idk man I haven't read the OG hill house book yet but I've seen and read so many different adaptations of it at this point I feel like this book should've made more sense to me. Like am I just not getting it?? Idk.
Yeah anyway where was I? There's no plot. They rent a big creepy mansion, act bitchy to each other the entire time, rehearse their play LITERALLY ONCE, and then weird shit happens and the book ends. The ending portion had significantly better pacing, though the bar was pretty low. I liked the ending section as a whole, but the ending itself was so painfully underwhelming and gave us absolutely no answers to any of the questions we'd spent the entire book wondering about. If the house wanted Nisa, then why the fuck did they put the door in Stevie's room like??? And shouldn't he have wanted to share it with her?? Bc it didn't seem to want him. Like. He didn't fit.
This book is well-written in terms of writing style. I liked the way the creepy undertones grew throughout the book, and I thought the author did a decent job of building the suspense and ambiance as the story progressed. It got pretty spooky by the end. That's kind of the only good thing I have to say about this though. If I wasn't so invested in the possibility of the characters all dying, I would've DNFed (to reiterate, they really were just infuriating to have to read about). Knowing what I know now (that the ending was underwhelming and left me with more questions than answers), I should've DNFed. Like wtf was even the point of that epilogue? Ugh. Whatever.
The single plot decision of this book that I was actually happy about was
Yeah anyway where was I? There's no plot. They rent a big creepy mansion, act bitchy to each other the entire time, rehearse their play LITERALLY ONCE, and then weird shit happens and the book ends. The ending portion had significantly better pacing, though the bar was pretty low. I liked the ending section as a whole, but the ending itself was so painfully underwhelming and gave us absolutely no answers to any of the questions we'd spent the entire book wondering about.
This book is well-written in terms of writing style. I liked the way the creepy undertones grew throughout the book, and I thought the author did a decent job of building the suspense and ambiance as the story progressed. It got pretty spooky by the end. That's kind of the only good thing I have to say about this though. If I wasn't so invested in the possibility of the characters all dying, I would've DNFed (to reiterate, they really were just infuriating to have to read about). Knowing what I know now (that the ending was underwhelming and left me with more questions than answers), I should've DNFed. Like wtf was even the point of that epilogue? Ugh. Whatever.