Reading time has been limited lately, but, honestly, I've also just been experiencing a lack of motivation. I've really struggled to finish the last two books I've attempted to read because they were just, well, bad - and this was one of them. Original, yes; engaging or compelling, no.
I tried to appreciate the prose, which was decent, and it's a fairly well-told tale, but the ridiculous factor was just too high for me. That's been the case with the last two I've read, actually - the other one was so bad that I made the rare executive decision about two-thirds of the way through not to finish it, so it doesn't even appear on my list, but that's a story for another day.
When I get behind on my reading challenge because I don't *want* to pick the thing up and claw my way through it - that's when I make the rare decision to stop. It got pretty close with this one, too. I just didn't get its appeal, frankly, but I understand if other people did. It just wasn't very interesting, honestly. It was just a series of events that occurred in am almost dream-like setting (when things don't have to make sense, be rational, or even realistic) with no real rhyme or reason.
Nor was it a "psychological thriller" in my view, as some people have described it. Once the reader gets over the shock (and for me, more than minor annoyance at a premise so ridiculous that it couldn't possibly be true) of a bunch of random ghosts in a house whose walls run with blood every September, there just wasn't much else to it. Very little happens until the last 30 pages or so, which are the most non-credible in the whole book, so it wasn't a situation where the ending made up for lost time.
I'm definitely a horror fan, but the reality factor has to be pretty high for me to enjoy it. Same with movies: less is better in general, but especially for "haunted house" stories. My favorites are the ones which make you think, those with a kind of "is there... isn't' there..." vibe to them. That's real psychological horror to me: the kind where the protagonist, and the audience, comes to question their own sanity - are the odd occurrences really due to some unknown malevolent force, or is it just the imagination, or someone playing a trick, or, hell, a brain tumor, that explains what's going on. The journey to uncover what's happening is the point for me, and what makes the story interesting. What makes those kinds of stories terrifying is the fact that it COULD be real... and the realization that events could happen to anyone.
That's perhaps what bothered me most about this one. The reality factor is totally absent. A woman lives in a house with her abusive, alcoholic husband for YEARS, which is populated by ghosts who can make physical contact with the living... cooking them dinner, scrubbing their toilets and floors, and biting them with sufficient force to leave scars. Even if the ghosts can choose who see them - apparently there are still objects moving around, which doesn't seem to hard to prove. Never made a fortune proving the existence of life after death, changing the world forever with that realization. Nope. The house just sits there, decade after decade, with only the residents wise to the horrors within.
And, what's more, they have a daughter, one they have somehow managed to successfully keep at bay, by just making excuses about why she can't come visit... ? Even if their relationship was strained, there are just too many missing pieces to make it believable. Again, just totally unrealistic. If this were my family member, I wouldn't call, after a while - I would just show up and bang on the door of my parents' home until they let me in. Again, just... odd and unrealistic.
Things do get a bit more interesting the last third of the book - something else that annoys me: when horror novels save the action for the last fifty pages of a 350-page book, but that wasn't enough to make the effort worthwhile. There's no journey of discovery, no attempt to escape or to end the horror, just a weak resignation of the protagonist's fate, almost like she accepts that she's entered her own private hell, from whence there IS no escape, which was apparently the case for one of the house's former residents. It's almost as if Margaret is resigned to the fact that eventually, she will end up as one of the disfigured ghosts who populate the house. All around, this one just didn't do it for me. Hope I have more luck with the next few I read.
I tried to appreciate the prose, which was decent, and it's a fairly well-told tale, but the ridiculous factor was just too high for me. That's been the case with the last two I've read, actually - the other one was so bad that I made the rare executive decision about two-thirds of the way through not to finish it, so it doesn't even appear on my list, but that's a story for another day.
When I get behind on my reading challenge because I don't *want* to pick the thing up and claw my way through it - that's when I make the rare decision to stop. It got pretty close with this one, too. I just didn't get its appeal, frankly, but I understand if other people did. It just wasn't very interesting, honestly. It was just a series of events that occurred in am almost dream-like setting (when things don't have to make sense, be rational, or even realistic) with no real rhyme or reason.
Nor was it a "psychological thriller" in my view, as some people have described it. Once the reader gets over the shock (and for me, more than minor annoyance at a premise so ridiculous that it couldn't possibly be true) of a bunch of random ghosts in a house whose walls run with blood every September, there just wasn't much else to it. Very little happens until the last 30 pages or so, which are the most non-credible in the whole book, so it wasn't a situation where the ending made up for lost time.
I'm definitely a horror fan, but the reality factor has to be pretty high for me to enjoy it. Same with movies: less is better in general, but especially for "haunted house" stories. My favorites are the ones which make you think, those with a kind of "is there... isn't' there..." vibe to them. That's real psychological horror to me: the kind where the protagonist, and the audience, comes to question their own sanity - are the odd occurrences really due to some unknown malevolent force, or is it just the imagination, or someone playing a trick, or, hell, a brain tumor, that explains what's going on. The journey to uncover what's happening is the point for me, and what makes the story interesting. What makes those kinds of stories terrifying is the fact that it COULD be real... and the realization that events could happen to anyone.
That's perhaps what bothered me most about this one. The reality factor is totally absent. A woman lives in a house with her abusive, alcoholic husband for YEARS, which is populated by ghosts who can make physical contact with the living... cooking them dinner, scrubbing their toilets and floors, and biting them with sufficient force to leave scars. Even if the ghosts can choose who see them - apparently there are still objects moving around, which doesn't seem to hard to prove. Never made a fortune proving the existence of life after death, changing the world forever with that realization. Nope. The house just sits there, decade after decade, with only the residents wise to the horrors within.
And, what's more, they have a daughter, one they have somehow managed to successfully keep at bay, by just making excuses about why she can't come visit... ? Even if their relationship was strained, there are just too many missing pieces to make it believable. Again, just totally unrealistic. If this were my family member, I wouldn't call, after a while - I would just show up and bang on the door of my parents' home until they let me in. Again, just... odd and unrealistic.
Things do get a bit more interesting the last third of the book - something else that annoys me: when horror novels save the action for the last fifty pages of a 350-page book, but that wasn't enough to make the effort worthwhile. There's no journey of discovery, no attempt to escape or to end the horror, just a weak resignation of the protagonist's fate, almost like she accepts that she's entered her own private hell, from whence there IS no escape, which was apparently the case for one of the house's former residents. It's almost as if Margaret is resigned to the fact that eventually, she will end up as one of the disfigured ghosts who populate the house. All around, this one just didn't do it for me. Hope I have more luck with the next few I read.
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