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May 27, 2011

Stephen rated it:

Shirley Jackson, you saucy little devil, where have you been all my life? I never knew she could spread prose like this. This is an impressive bit of work and definitely belongs among the classics of literate horror novels.

Right from the first pitch, you can see that Ms Jackson…Shirl…is smitten with language and she uses it to great effect to create an emotionally charged, disorientating atmosphere with healthy heapings of melodrama. Very gothic in feel and actually reminded me of More...

2 comments like (46 people liked it)

Jun 02, 2010

Brad rated it:

Rarely have my feelings about a book been so jumbled.

I hated all The Haunting of Hill House's characters so much that I couldn't stand reading the book, yet Shirley Jackson's need to make us hate all the characters in the book, and her success impressed the hell out of me.

But then I wondered if the reason I hated the characters was not genuinely because of the book, but because of the crappy film version from 1999. Jan de Bont's remake, The Haunting, was abysmal, and the More...

22 comments like (24 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Sam rated it:

The Haunting Of Hill House is so much more than a haunted house story. At it's heart it's a psychological profile of a very troubled woman trying to find a place in the world. I'm sure it's chock full of symbolism, if you're one of them literary nerd types. Symbolism is all well and good, but if it weighs down the story then what's the point? Jackson doesn't spend an excessive amount of time on it - she simply tells the story in short vignettes, leading the reader through scenes of lyrical c More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Sam rated it:

What are we talking about when we talk about genre fiction? Some people say it's a matter of tropes: a murder weapon, an android army, a haunted house. But a trope is just the shadow of a construction that used to be meaningful, and among the glut of police procedurals and space odysseys, good writers have always been mining the violence, loneliness, and paranoia that hides in the depths of our common forms. For Patricia Highsmith, a murder weapon wasn't just window dressing - it was an expr More...

2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2007

Anne rated it:

I was once so in love with Shirley Jackson that I declared I'd marry the man who could identify the source of this passage:

"Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup
of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone
else you will never see your cup of stars again"

Thank goodness this didn't happen (this was before search engines, by the way), but I'll hold to the opinion that Shirley Jackson is one of the most intriguing More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Sarah Pi rated it:

By the standards of modern horror The Haunting of Hill House is not very scary at all, which is to say that I was able to read it without limiting my reading time to sunny mornings. It's a creepy book, but most of the horror was palatable to this wussy reader. It helped that I live in the anti-Hill House, a house of similar age to that twisted construction, but all warmth and welcome. I enjoyed the development of the characters, though it was hard to separate what was real from their playful pro More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2007

Brooke rated it:

I'm a huge fan of books where houses are one of the characters (see: House of Leaves, for example). I'd recently Tivoed The Haunting (the 1999 version) and was annoyed that while there were some good underlying ideas, the execution was cheesy and over-the-top. While browsing the horror aisle at a used bookstore, I saw Shirley Jackson's original novel, which is considered a classic ghost story, and decided to give it a try in hopes that it would retain the good parts of the movie and eliminate th More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Sarah rated it:

There are many authors who can evoke a visceral reaction. What distinguishes Shirley Jackson is her thorough understanding of those reactions. This is not just a horror story but very much a study of the horror genre as well as of the human psyche.

This book speaks to a profound alienation, the kind you have to be very alone, very afraid, and very angry for a very long time to truly understand. I know this protagonist. I know this place and just how easy it is to succumb to it. If you w More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

Keith rated it:

Erm. This book was lent to me with the assurance that it was one of the ten-or-so greatest horror novels of all time.

So, just having finished it, I'm already forgetting having read it. The two stars it gets are because, quite literally, "it was ok" -- Jackson has an interesting writing style and an ear for consistent, if not always realistic, quirky dialogue. But the characters spend so much time being weirdly objective about their own fears that when bad stuff happens, I More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2010

Shawn rated it:

Why rehash what the 5 star reviewers say below? Why even engage the lame arguments by the people who didn't enjoy the book (weak ending? unrealistic dialogue!? not enough happens!?! Christ, people, have an imagination! - although I will say this, they don't seem to be teaching kids what an "unreliable narrator" is in school nowadays, as this book is all about Eleanor's weak and self-centered take on her surroundings and how that slowly gets worked over by Hill House - so an unreliab More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2008

El rated it:

Eleanor Vance is a painfully shy and inexperienced woman who spent a large chunk of her time caring for her ailing mother. Afer her death she lived with her sister and her sister's family instead of using the opportunity to live on her own and experience her own life. She is wracked with guilt over her mother's death and is insecure enough to allow her sister and her brother-in-law make most decisions for her. When Eleanor receives an invitation to Hill House she is intrigued and eager to hav More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2007

Pamster rated it:

Scary. I got scared. My roommate said "Maybe you shouldn't read that at night." It's a lovely ghosty psychological thriller. I almost wrote "chiller." Eew. It's a rumpy toasty pathological chiller. There's a perfectly tense mood as the house itself is a foreboding character from the start, and the four main characters spending their days in the house attempting with lightness to deal with their fears just tightened the creeping suspense.

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2011

Cherylann rated it:

As Worcester, Massachusetts received a foot of snow on October 31st, I couldn't help but feel that my Halloween had been snatched away from me. Winter had leapt ahead, leaving that macabre holiday out. In order to combat this loss I read a couple Edgar Allan Poe short stories and began Shirley Jackson's creepy classic, The Haunting of Hill House. This novel started spectacularly. I was hooked by the odd disturbances and the bizarre cast of characters. I was certain that my missed holiday w More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 24, 2010

± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2011

Chris rated it:

With elegance and understatement Jackson has crafted one of the best haunted house stories I have read. Immediately upon the first jarring glimpse of the secluded Hill House by Eleanor Vance, the troubled young naïf who's damaged psyche presents an irresistible temptation to ghostly palates, the story veers from the prosaic to the sinister and never looks back. In the space of a handful of sentences the reader can viscerally sense the utter wrongness that resides in the looming mansion.

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2011

Michelle rated it:

I've wanted to read this book since junior high or high school and finally got around to doing it. I had high hopes and even higher expectations. They were both sorely disappointed.

Three random people are chosen by a doctor to spend a summer in a home that is supposedly haunted, by what it is haunted is anyone's guess. How he finds these people is anyone's guess. The doctor's reasons for choosing these particular subjects are as obscure as their inexplicable reasons for joining a More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Susan rated it:

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 02, 2008

Paul rated it:

Whenever I think of Shirley Jackson I automatically click on her "Lottery" short story, which had a big impact on me when I first read it in 9th grade. I've so linked her with that story that I tend to forget she wrote anything else, and I was surprised to find her as the author of this book. Sadly, I can remember times in the past when I thought of reading this book, and was surprised to find her as the author. Will I ever remember, or am I destined for a repeating cycle of idiocy? Ma More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2008

Will rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 23, 2007

anenko rated it:

The story of “The Haunting Of Hill House” is atmospheric, and intensely creepy. The slow building horror is primarily psychological, but there are a few truly disturbing moments: holding hands with someone in the dark, footsteps left by an invisible person along the riverbank, a pounding in the night which leaves doors rattling in their frames.

Almost as intense and smothering as the haunting of Hill House is the relationship between Eleanor and Theodora. It is a blend of affecti More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 20, 2008

Alison rated it:

"Theodora," she said, and closed her eyes and tightened her teeth together and wrapped her arms around herself, "it's getting closer."

"The Haunting of Hill House" is morbidly funny and imaginative, spookier than it is scary, and more eerie and blood-chilling than violent or stomach-wrenching. It's a classic ghost story that has been shamelessly borrowed and stolen from.

Shirley Jackson has a very unique voice, especially for a woman. Her writ More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2009

Jolie rated it:

My favorite "scary" book.... not only for the ghostly occurances but the psychological aspects of the story. Love it!

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 04, 2012

Stephanie rated it:

Doctor Montague remark, "There is a pattern to these things, as though psychic phenomena were subject to laws of a very particular sort."

Essentially, what he's telling us is that

There are CERTAIN RULES that one MUST abide by in order to SUCCESSFULLY SURVIVE a horror story. The rules are as follows:

Rule number one: Don't be a douchebag.
You don't like it when other people are judgmental and hypercritical toward you, so at all possible try not to be tha More...

0 comments like

Dec 13, 2011

Judy rated it:

This turned out to be my least liked novel by Shirley Jackson. In fact, I like the early Hangsaman, 1951, the most.

In The Haunting of Hill House, Dr Montague, an occult scholar, has gathered with three individuals selected for evidence of psychic abilities, in the old unoccupied mansion with its sad history of deaths, including suicide. The Doctor hopes to find solid evidence for what is called "haunting."

Eleanor, the protagonist, is a typical Jackson heroine. She c More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 21, 2011

Chasity rated it:

Not a very scary book but very interesting. Colorful and engaging characters. For me it read more as a tragedy than a horror story. The main character is truly one of the most pitiable characters I have ever read about and Jackson takes you deep into her unstable mind. The key to this book is that the author takes her time making you care about the characters before unleashing any spooky events in the book that makes them have a greater emotional impact even if they don't have a huge fear factor More...

0 comments like

Nov 16, 2011

Venessa rated it:

I first read this book when I was fifteen, after discovering Shirley Jackson in my 10th grade English class. I've read it several times since, and it is one of those novels I will continue to read over and over again, there's so many brilliant elements and layers to this book that I gain something new every time. So I'm thankful N picked me up this copy when he was at our favorite used book store last weekend!

Four people gather at Hill House for paranormal observation: Dr. Montague, More...

4 comments like

Nov 15, 2011

meeners rated it:

half a day later and i am still reeling from this book. it is gripping and brilliant and chilling, a feminist gothic horror novel that is brutally intelligent and never once kind. as the psychological horror mounts and the whole world starts to tilt dangerously off balance all you can do is sit there frozen on the bed, just like the protagonist, listening, watching, waiting for a darkness that is pressing in and in, it's there, it's howling, it's the house, it's you.

this is one of tho More...

2 comments like

Nov 05, 2011

Stenwjohnson rated it:

Ghost stories often imagine the inexpressible, unresolved pain of the spirit world. Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” takes a different, more oblique approach, brilliantly counterpoising human loneliness against a shadowy, chaotic supernatural realm. In the 1959 novel, an academic researcher invites three participants to help him observe phenomena in a house presumed to be haunted: Eleanor Vance, a lonely young woman of limited experience; Theodora, an impudent bohemian; and the irr More...

0 comments like

Oct 30, 2011

Brittany rated it:

Just finished it and I'm still a little confused (hence, the 4 stars). I'm still think this has the makings of an excellent horror if only I understood it more.
The Haunting of Hill House , despite being a haunted house story, does not read like a typical horror story. It does not feel like it has to go out of its way to scare you; there is no terrifying description of ghosts to haunt you in your sleep. The manifestations themselves, which plaque the characters throughout their stay in Hil More...

0 comments like

Oct 03, 2011

Kate rated it:

Poor Eleanor Vance develops a disturbing emotional kinship with an ill-famed dastardly ominous house in this seminal work of terror.

Eleanor has never had much adventure. She is dowdy and empty from years of caring for a demanding ailing mother. Her sister is at best selfish and acknowledges Eleanor only to berate her and question her existence as a human being. Eleanor ends up being part of a study on paranormal phenomena that leads her to Hill House. The ominous, grand old mansion More...

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