Helpful Score: 4
I'd give this book a B-. It's a fine horror read and I do love a haunted/evil house book. Nightmare House put me in the mind of Five Mile House by Karen Novak with a bit of Amityville Horror (for the inspired madness the house seems to embody) thrown in and stirred well.
I felt much more connected to the characters (particulary the main charater) in Nightmare House, but as with Five Mile House, I would have liked to see the supporting characters better developed, MUCH better developed. I enjoyed the couple of hours I spent with Nightmare House, but felt it was rather a shell of a story, not fully fleshed out yet.
Also, I personally thought the grandfathers tale would have been FAR more interesting. In the end, there is a great deal left to the readers imagination as far as what "really" happened and I feel this would make a fine read for a book club group because there Nightmare House allows for a lot of speculation about the human condition, faith, and madness in the human mind.
I was surprised to find that at a short 340 pages, only 218 of them were the story Nightmare House, the remaining hundred or so pages were a "bonus" copy of Clegg's novella Purity. Purity was quite Lovecraftian in it's own way (though I suppose that was rather the point) and is also one of those stories that makes one stop and think about nature of faith, personal beliefs and human nature. It was an interesting, if short read.
Overall, time well spent.
I felt much more connected to the characters (particulary the main charater) in Nightmare House, but as with Five Mile House, I would have liked to see the supporting characters better developed, MUCH better developed. I enjoyed the couple of hours I spent with Nightmare House, but felt it was rather a shell of a story, not fully fleshed out yet.
Also, I personally thought the grandfathers tale would have been FAR more interesting. In the end, there is a great deal left to the readers imagination as far as what "really" happened and I feel this would make a fine read for a book club group because there Nightmare House allows for a lot of speculation about the human condition, faith, and madness in the human mind.
I was surprised to find that at a short 340 pages, only 218 of them were the story Nightmare House, the remaining hundred or so pages were a "bonus" copy of Clegg's novella Purity. Purity was quite Lovecraftian in it's own way (though I suppose that was rather the point) and is also one of those stories that makes one stop and think about nature of faith, personal beliefs and human nature. It was an interesting, if short read.
Overall, time well spent.
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