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A review by charleyyyyy
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
5.0
🩶I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was always entertained while reading, and always excited to pick it up again.
🩶I LOVE personified houses!! I love it when the house itself is a charicter in the story, and Hill House had such a personality! I love the descriptions on how the house was built, with everything being slightly out of proportion, and the spiral like structure, it gave the house such a unique and vivid feel. The way the house sucks in the charicters, to the point where there is no sense of the outside world anymore, and a feeling of not being able to escape, realy added to the spooky atmosphere.
🩶And what a spooky atmosphere it was! There is a constant sense of immanent doom, from the very begining, you know that something bad is coming, and I love that in books.
🩶However, it was never scary. Plenty spooky, but not frightening. I wanted it to give more in that regard, especially with where the story went at the end. I feel like it could have gotten so much scarier and delved so much deeper into the creepy elements of the story, but it just didn't. I found that a little unsatisfying.
🩶The charicters were great. Each of them had such a strong, distinct voice and personality. It was interesting to see how their relationships to each other changed during their stay at Hill House because of the creepy things going on.
🩶Eleanore's charicter development was great but, again, with where the story went towards the end, I feel like it could have been taken so much farther than it was.
🩶The plot built slowly, with tension being added with every page, you could always feel that it was creeping towards the climax. It was very charicter based, with the main focus being on the charicters feelings and mentality towards the situation. There is alot more time spent with the charicters having converstsions about the creepy things going on, than actual creepy things happening. I enjoyed that though, as I prefer charicter based story's.
🩶I have never seen any TV adaptations of this book, so I have nothing to compare the book to. From what I've heard they're quite different so I'm glad I've read the book first.
🩶I would recommend this book if you want a ghost story that's not too scary, and don't mind a slow, charicter based plot.
🩶I gave this book 5 stars just bc of how much I enjoyed reading it.
🩶I LOVE personified houses!! I love it when the house itself is a charicter in the story, and Hill House had such a personality! I love the descriptions on how the house was built, with everything being slightly out of proportion, and the spiral like structure, it gave the house such a unique and vivid feel. The way the house sucks in the charicters, to the point where there is no sense of the outside world anymore, and a feeling of not being able to escape, realy added to the spooky atmosphere.
🩶And what a spooky atmosphere it was! There is a constant sense of immanent doom, from the very begining, you know that something bad is coming, and I love that in books.
🩶However, it was never scary. Plenty spooky, but not frightening. I wanted it to give more in that regard, especially with where the story went at the end. I feel like it could have gotten so much scarier and delved so much deeper into the creepy elements of the story, but it just didn't. I found that a little unsatisfying.
🩶The charicters were great. Each of them had such a strong, distinct voice and personality. It was interesting to see how their relationships to each other changed during their stay at Hill House because of the creepy things going on.
🩶Eleanore's charicter development was great but, again, with where the story went towards the end, I feel like it could have been taken so much farther than it was.
🩶The plot built slowly, with tension being added with every page, you could always feel that it was creeping towards the climax. It was very charicter based, with the main focus being on the charicters feelings and mentality towards the situation. There is alot more time spent with the charicters having converstsions about the creepy things going on, than actual creepy things happening. I enjoyed that though, as I prefer charicter based story's.
🩶I have never seen any TV adaptations of this book, so I have nothing to compare the book to. From what I've heard they're quite different so I'm glad I've read the book first.
🩶I would recommend this book if you want a ghost story that's not too scary, and don't mind a slow, charicter based plot.
🩶I gave this book 5 stars just bc of how much I enjoyed reading it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Suicide, Death of parent, and Car accident
Minor: Child death