Highs and Lows
Currently reading:
The Road Through the Wall by Shirley Jackson
Books finished this week: 2
★★☆☆☆
Where this book came from: I’m 99% sure I bought this at Book Club Bar, probably during the Lower East Side book crawl.
Why this book: I couldn’t ignore a sanctioned Hill House sequel, especially after rereading the book for my Lit of the Gothic class this fall.
Thoughts: Wow, where do I start with this book? Because there were so many things I disliked. I’ll start by saying, yes, of course, I had very high expectations, seeing as this is an authorized sequel to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, a book that means quite a lot to me, and, yes, I was fairly certain I was going to be disappointed by this. But I just didn’t enjoy this as a novel either. Even if this was a standalone——and honestly, it could’ve been, with just a few small tweaks——I’m confident I would be just as disappointed and would be giving it the same rating. The characters were the most irritating people I’ve ever met, and though we got a lot of details about all of them, they still didn’t feel fully fleshed out to me. The scares were nonexistent. The plot was muddled. And why the fuck did that one character sing so much, and why did we have to have her lyrics written out on so many pages?? In seriousness, even when Hill House feels obtuse, I felt like Jackson knew what she was doing, like someone understood the mechanics and the logic behind all of it. This book was like throwing a ton of shit at the wall to see what sticks, without any thought to what makes sense or what will actually build that patented Jackson eeriness, and tacking up a few callbacks to the original novel for seasoning. Overall, this just felt like a second-rate money grab following a horror classic, like we’ve seen happen so many times over in the world of horror movies. You expect it, you’re resigned to it, but it doesn’t make you any less sad that it happened.
★★★★★
Where this book came from: the incomparable Book Club again
Why this book: The cover caught my eye, when the book was on display on a front table.Something about the premise drew me in——I knew I was either going to absolutely hate this book and abandon it, or fall in love with it.
Thoughts: Reader, I loved it. A unique style and gorgeous prose. It took some getting used to, but once I found the rhythm, I was in it.
Library updates:
The two books reviewed in this week’s missive were finished mere days apart, yet read in different years. And how fitting that 2023, which was mostly fine, even marked by a few true bright spots and also downturns, ended with the reading of a terrible book, and 2024, still full of hope and mystery, started with a wonderful one. I’m choosing to take it as a sign that I should allow myself to be optimistic in this new year.
I’m also choosing to let myself end this missive early. I don’t have too much more I want to share beyond the book reviews above. The holidays were fine, New Year’s was quiet, and I’m tentatively looking forward to what comes next.
Closing thoughts:
Enjoy reading this year.
Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 56
(Total books added to the Library: 117)
Listen, I didn’t have New Year’s Eve plans, I spent part of the day in a Barnes & Noble, and one thing led to another.
And then I checked out Next Chapter on New Year’s Day.
