My Five Word TL:DR Review: A Good Time Was Had

I’m just going to be honest. More often than not when I request a book I don’t read the description, or I just skim the parts that really interest me. I know what sort of book I like and I also have a number of authors that I will hit ‘request’ for in a New York minute if I see a new release on the horizon. So, going into THTEtD, well firstly this was a ‘new to me’ author and I had no real idea what it was about – other than the title – which, I also hold my hands up – I rather lead myself down the garden path with and thought it was going to be more of a ‘killing’ house – I don’t know why I though that but I did. As it happens, and again, confession, when I picked this up it was almost begrudgingly and with the expectation that it wasn’t going to win me over. I was wrong. There you go. This was very entertaining. I had no problem eating this up at all in fact the only problem I had was putting it down. Considering how busy I’ve been recently I ended up staying up into the early hours to finish it. Original, strangely horrible and very addictive.

Now, first off. I’m going to forewarn some of you out there, and you know who you are, there is a family dog, and it unfortunately has a fatal accident. I don’t want to give away spoilers but let me just say that the house does not kill the dog! And, yes, I was upset because I’m a dog lover and have two dogs. I’m not a lover of the demise of the family pet, any more than I am a lover of the girlfriend/wife who dies in the first few chapters of a book as a means of provoking revenge or payback or whatever in the husband/boyfriend. To an extent, yes, I guess the author did use this death to ease readers into what’s really happening with the house, and before you all break out the pitchforks and torches let me just say he’s much more ruthless with the people he ‘lets go’ and some of them were equally innocent. I’m just stating this to help you make an informed decision really, the whole family dog demise might be enough to put some readers off this – so you have been warned.

Moving on. Claire and Tom have decided to move from the City and have finally found a house that they think is perfect for their family. They’re not the only ones bidding, this is a popular house in a very sought after area and a tough economic market too – they can’t really afford to go too high. Claire finally writes a very personal letter of submission and the family find themselves the lucky owners of a new house. Straight away there are odd things, strange noises at night, things just seem to go missing, are they displaced? It’s all very odd. Okay, everyone puts things down, or more to the point thinks they’ve put things in a specific place only to find them somewhere else, with this house, that’s totally different – but I won’t say more – other than things escalate.

I really don’t want to ruin this for anyone else and part of the fun for me was the uniqueness of this and discovering it for myself.

Instead, here’s what worked.

Well, firstly the author doesn’t try to explain things. There is no explanation. I don’t know whether this is a haunted house story in the traditional sense because that usually involves an entity of some sort that has passed away but lingers and haunts people. So, this isn’t really a haunting. It’s more like the house is sentient. How, I have no idea and frankly I also don’t care that much to know because any explanation would probably be trite at best. Just go with the flow. This house feels, it knows, it understands and it can learn. If you could have a pet house, well, here it is.

I wonder how much I can tell you? Well, the clue is really in the title. So, this house eats what is dead. Your oak table and chairs used to be alive. Cut flowers. Pieces of chicken or fish in your fridge. Pages of a book – what is paper made of? I never really thought of this but it makes you think, in a very surface level way because you’re too busy moving on with the story – which is quick paced and relentless and, frankly, compulsive.

The characters. I liked Claire. She is pretty crazy at points and you may be reading and thinking ‘really’, but her nickname as a younger women did involve the word chaos, and whilst she’s turned into some sort of yummy middle class very well heeled woman, secretly, she feels like she’s become a different version of herself. This definitely feeds into the story.

Also, the house changes people. It’s a hungry house and there’s nothing like the power of suggestion to a mind that either wants power, or popularity or even just a bedtime story. It’s a clever house. More than that it attracts, lets just say ‘the wrong sort’. This could be a very useful house to certain people. It eats things, evidence, even history. sometimes it makes things too easy. It really is a fantastic concept.

The writing is good, the pace is good, the story is good. It feels really unique and I was gripped and entertained.

This was good, entertaining, easy to read and enjoyable. Don’t expect deep and meaningful as such although there is a theme here about abuse of power and more so right and wrong and how easy it is to make the wrong choices if they make your life simpler.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

My rating 4 of 5 stars