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A review by bookish_kristina
The Horror of Haglin House by M.R.C. Kasasian
2.0
Thank goodness this is over!
This was the longest, most convoluted, slightly gross, entirely ridiculous book I’ve read in a very long time. It had more endings than Lord of the Rings and more side characters.
Though parts of this book were amusing -the author definitely has wit and the servant characters often stole the show- this needed serious editing and to be cut down by *at least* 200 pages. I honestly think this book was written for the author’s own amusement and the reader experience wasn’t ever taken into account.
The first part of the book was incredibly difficult to follow. The main character, Violet, is an author and her characters live in her head and give comment on EVERY.SINGLE.THING. After you figure out that she’s not, in fact crazy, you kind of start to make sense of the author’s writing style. But then the inner voices start to multiply and we have characters break into her thoughts that we’ve never met or seen before, and sometimes inanimate objects speak to her as well. This is INCREDIBLY overdone and VERY distracting. It’s like a literary fly is buzzing around in the narrative and you just want to swat it away to focus on the plot.
Now the plot itself was all over the place, there are murders and deaths happening left and right. The murders are then solved once, and then solved yet again and then there are still chapters left to get through. Ultimately I was bored and annoyed most of the book. The murderer is pretty obvious and the red herrings equally so. In fact, it is so obvious I found myself (with my lovely reading buddy Dab) talking myself out of what was obvious, because it was so entirely obvious.
Anyway I could go on and on but I’m going to end this before it starts to read like the book. Do not recommend. The cover is very well done, the rest needs significant work.
Thanks to Canelo and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
Thanks to my reading buddy Dab for suffering through this with me. We are trauma bonded for life.
This was the longest, most convoluted, slightly gross, entirely ridiculous book I’ve read in a very long time. It had more endings than Lord of the Rings and more side characters.
Though parts of this book were amusing -the author definitely has wit and the servant characters often stole the show- this needed serious editing and to be cut down by *at least* 200 pages. I honestly think this book was written for the author’s own amusement and the reader experience wasn’t ever taken into account.
The first part of the book was incredibly difficult to follow. The main character, Violet, is an author and her characters live in her head and give comment on EVERY.SINGLE.THING. After you figure out that she’s not, in fact crazy, you kind of start to make sense of the author’s writing style. But then the inner voices start to multiply and we have characters break into her thoughts that we’ve never met or seen before, and sometimes inanimate objects speak to her as well. This is INCREDIBLY overdone and VERY distracting. It’s like a literary fly is buzzing around in the narrative and you just want to swat it away to focus on the plot.
Now the plot itself was all over the place, there are murders and deaths happening left and right. The murders are then solved once, and then solved yet again and then there are still chapters left to get through. Ultimately I was bored and annoyed most of the book. The murderer is pretty obvious and the red herrings equally so. In fact, it is so obvious I found myself (with my lovely reading buddy Dab) talking myself out of what was obvious, because it was so entirely obvious.
Anyway I could go on and on but I’m going to end this before it starts to read like the book. Do not recommend. The cover is very well done, the rest needs significant work.
Thanks to Canelo and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
Thanks to my reading buddy Dab for suffering through this with me. We are trauma bonded for life.