My Goodreads review: Slade House

[ankh_hpl]

<Slade House by David Mitchell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This very odd, very well-written, and intermittently spooky short novel was my first read of 2016. It was also my first experience with David Mitchell’s writing, which might have been part of the problem I had with it.

I’ve read elsewhere that this author (of The Bone Clocks, Cloud Atlas, and other works, some of which can be described as speculative) tends to interweave the elements of his novels. If so, that might explain why I had so much trouble waiting for certain concepts to be explained – in vain – or why the middle of the book seemed so slow.

It’s entirely possible that I was missing something important. Perhaps having essentially the same series of disquieting events happen to three separate victims of Slade House (and I’m not going to add any spoilers!) was intentional. Perhaps I was meant to know, or care, more about these first three individuals than I did. Unfortunately, I barely made it through the first three sections of this novel before getting caught up in its two-section conclusion – which did deliver a pretty nasty plot twist.

There’s nothing wrong with Mitchell’s prose here, or his skill in building creepy atmosphere. Fans of quiet horror will likely find much to admire. All in all, I suspect I’m being unfair by only awarding this one three stars rather than four, but I’ve got to report my own experience.




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