Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

27 reviews

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Big thanks to my newest literary heroine Shirley Jackson for yassifying the ghost story. You truly were ahead of your time.

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I feel a tremendous urge to write essays about this book. MULTIPLE essays. This is a masterpiece. 


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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

So... I was expecting a little bit more from this book. Being my favorite genre and so acclaimed (this book was the inspiration for the Netflix series) I was expecting pure, dark horror.

Don't get me wrong, the book is good: a haunted house and a bunch of people living in it is the perfect plot to a great book. We get all the classics: knocks on the doors, footsteps when nobody is around, people acting in a very weird way. But that was not enough. The dialogs are long, superficial and, sometimes, very confusing - almost as if it was written to be a script and not a actual book. The characters are annoying and you never, truly, understand if that's how they really are or if that's part of the house's influence. Maybe that's the intention, after all. But we will never find out.

For me, there is a lot of talking and not enough action. I hear very nice thing about the series so I'm going to give it a try. 

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dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I think perhaps it was intentional, but this book was so disjointed that I had a hard time enjoying it. There were bits and pieces that I found enjoyable but overall it was confusing and strange. I think the possession of one of the characters affected their interactions with the others but I can’t be sure because it’s never clearly stated. If I hadn’t seen the show first, I think my expectations would’ve been different or less and I may have enjoyed this more. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

i wouldn't say i found it scary or tense at all, just a lil spooky at times. it started off strong but kind of fell into a lull for the last third until the very end. i wanted to see
the house's control over Eleanor
play out longer; it was definitely a slow burn but there wasn't much payoff.
also, no, this book doesn't have any queer undertones. they are so blatant they're fucking overtones.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings