The Haunting of Hill House
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4.0 • 37 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The best-known of Shirley Jackson's novels and a major inspiration for writers like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King as well as the hit Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a chilling story of the power of fear
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
Alone in the world, Eleanor is delighted to take up Dr Montague's invitation to spend a summer in the mysterious Hill House. Joining them are Theodora, an artistic 'sensitive', and Luke, heir to the house. But what begins as a light-hearted experiment is swiftly proven to be a trip into their darkest nightmares, and an investigation that one of their number may not survive. Twice filmed as The Haunting, and the inspiration for a 10-part Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a powerful work of slow-burning psychological horror.
'An amazing writer ... If you haven't read her you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman
'As nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read' Stephen King
'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable' A. M. Homes
'Shirley Jackson is one of those highly idiosyncratic, inimitable writers...whose work exerts an enduring spell' Joyce Carol Oates
Customer Reviews
The Haunting of Hill House
A strange and haunting tale of, in many ways, the stereotypical haunted house. There are times when the characters are totaly believable. Excentric, but believable. The manifestations of the haunting, however, lack subtlty, cohesion and any sense of connection, even to Eleanor, who is supposedly the catalyst for the strange disturbances.
Mrs Dudley, with her stoical loyalty and obsessive adherence to a strict routine, provides a solid, even humorous counterpoint to the elusive, but often predictable and at times childishly silly things that go bump in the night. All that blood on the clothes in the wardrobe that is seen by four people but disappears when their backs are turned leaving everything as it was, and the banging and shaking of walls and doors, so severe that the house should have been torn apart, would have been more credible if some small, but consistent, mark had been left behind as evidence.
Eleanor is clearly an unreliable narrator, but even in her increasingly confused state there would have been room for a connecting thread to give the story more emotional power.
This story is intriguing, but it lost me at the end.
1/5
Had high expectations as I’ve watched ‘The haunting of hill house’ on Netflix. Needed Siri to read the rest to me because I lost all interest.