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A review by tylertylertyler
This House Is Haunted by John Boyne
1.0
I received this book for free for the purpose of reviewing it.
This book was astoundingly... okay. At points better, at a lot of points worse. It's unfortunate, as I had been looking forward to this book and hoping for a nice, good ghost story, but that isn't really what we got.
The best part of the book was that, for the most part, Boyne did a fairly good job with the time period. The language, for the most part, did a pretty good job at keeping with the period, and some of the mannerisms as well. There were a few smaller details that didn't sit right, but for the most part it seemed fairly well researched. However, he definitely spent a bit too much time emphasizing the political climate of the period. I am well aware that women were much less respected in 1867 than were their male counterparts: you do not need to have your protagonist re-emphasize this as often as she did. To an extent it played a role in the novel, but often an unnecessary one.
That was just thing that was repeated far too often.
The most irritating thing that was recurring in the novel was everyone else's surprise about the protagonist's ignorance of events. It was constant that she would express confusion or ask a question only to be met with, 'what do you mean you don't know?' The fact that this essentially boiled down to saying, 'why don't you know this fact about a year-and-a-half old scandal, that everyone refuses to talk about, from a town you've never even been to before?' The amount of times people just expected her to know things (and often refusing themselves to tell her anything) was greatly annoying. Also, I found some of the people's responses to her, the house, and the story a little ridiculous. Those closest to the events of that night were one thing, but people suddenly refusing to be friendly with her and ignoring her? There was no reason for it.
Then again, there were a fair few moments of flawed logic in the cast-- or just in the writing.
The children, I admit, were interesting, but they were also weirdly de-emphasized in the story. I feel like the novel could have fulfilled its potential more fully had the author actually used the children to his advantage.
And occasionally the horror stepped away from 'creepy' and into 'ridiculous.' There were some genuinely good moments, some genuinely good atmosphere, but there were also times where I felt like the scene belonged in... I don't know, a YA fantasy novel at best, not a horror novel. For instance,. It wasn't scary, it just sounded stupid. The same went for a large part of the ending-- it didn't feel like a horror story at all.
That said, I did like one element of the ending and the writing, as I said, did have some good qualities to it. I didn't like this book, not really, but it wasn't terrible either.
Mostly, it felt like Boyne was totally out of his element.
This book was astoundingly... okay. At points better, at a lot of points worse. It's unfortunate, as I had been looking forward to this book and hoping for a nice, good ghost story, but that isn't really what we got.
The best part of the book was that, for the most part, Boyne did a fairly good job with the time period. The language, for the most part, did a pretty good job at keeping with the period, and some of the mannerisms as well. There were a few smaller details that didn't sit right, but for the most part it seemed fairly well researched. However, he definitely spent a bit too much time emphasizing the political climate of the period. I am well aware that women were much less respected in 1867 than were their male counterparts: you do not need to have your protagonist re-emphasize this as often as she did. To an extent it played a role in the novel, but often an unnecessary one.
That was just thing that was repeated far too often.
The most irritating thing that was recurring in the novel was everyone else's surprise about the protagonist's ignorance of events. It was constant that she would express confusion or ask a question only to be met with, 'what do you mean you don't know?' The fact that this essentially boiled down to saying, 'why don't you know this fact about a year-and-a-half old scandal, that everyone refuses to talk about, from a town you've never even been to before?' The amount of times people just expected her to know things (and often refusing themselves to tell her anything) was greatly annoying. Also, I found some of the people's responses to her, the house, and the story a little ridiculous. Those closest to the events of that night were one thing, but people suddenly refusing to be friendly with her and ignoring her? There was no reason for it.
Then again, there were a fair few moments of flawed logic in the cast-- or just in the writing.
The children, I admit, were interesting, but they were also weirdly de-emphasized in the story. I feel like the novel could have fulfilled its potential more fully had the author actually used the children to his advantage.
And occasionally the horror stepped away from 'creepy' and into 'ridiculous.' There were some genuinely good moments, some genuinely good atmosphere, but there were also times where I felt like the scene belonged in... I don't know, a YA fantasy novel at best, not a horror novel. For instance,
Spoiler
when she is thrown out of the window, then back in again. Then out of it again and then in againThat said, I did like one element of the ending and the writing, as I said, did have some good qualities to it. I didn't like this book, not really, but it wasn't terrible either.
Mostly, it felt like Boyne was totally out of his element.