Hmmm. I think I ruined my own experience of this one through my own past knowledge of it: I’m pretty sure I haven’t read it in the past, and yet, I was already aware of all the plot points once it started rolling. Beyond that, I suppose, there are the characters, but even they were totally disaffecting to me. There is a finely-crafted and unsettling mood around everything which works incredibly well in this story and it’s unfolding, but I felt like I knew exactly […]
Madness, Illness, Grief, and The Haunting of Hill House
Beware of mild spoilers … I recently finished watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. But it is still with me. It was at times an uncomfortable watch, but it also may be one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. It can’t really be called an adaptation of the immortal Shirley Jackson novel. That classic book could be considered more of a jumping-off point for this, an original, deeply-felt horror story. The original novel, first published in 1959, concerns a […]
New England Gothic done right
I seem to be on a roll the past few years with my first read of the year being top notch. This year, I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. It had cropped up a few times in my periphery, on book blogs and the like, and my interest was piqued. My goal for this year is to read more from my library instead of spending a fortune on books (finishing the PhD and only working part time means I’m poor […]
End in Sight
Burden of Proof – 3/5 Stars So this is a second of the “Kindle County” series books that Turow has been publishing over the course of the last 30 years. I reviewed the first one a few months back. This a “legal thriller” and starts with Sandy Stern (of Argentine Jewish descent, which comes up, repeatedly) finding his wife dead in the garage of a possible suicide. There is a note but few clues as to what might have happened. Over the course of the […]