The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

So, the minute I posted that I would not do all the books in order in the library but be more selective….. I had a stack of books to return and sat down to eat lunch and grabbed one of them because lunch plus reading is a must. I ended up getting deeply involved in how the author was writing the book. Not necessarily the content of the story, but the structure. So, I read.

The Haunting of Lamb House is about a boy/man who journals a portion of his life’s story and hides it away in his house. It is found a century later by the new owner and the new owner is grapples with what to do with it. We finally see the manuscript put to rest by the next owner of the house in a sedate ending to a ghost tale.

The Good – What an incredible way to write a tale. The book is separated into three parts. The first part is a first person narative by the boy/man Toby and tells his story of growing up in Lamb house and ultimately of his sisters suicide and all the events that led her there. This first part was fantastic. And, although it had to chapter breaks in the story it read so well it didn’t need them. I enjoyed the story, even though it is pretty dark. While we never learn what happened to Alice that caused here to ultimately take her life, Toby’s sister, it is so insinuated that there is no doubt. The book also outlines what a bleak and hard time it was to be a woman.

Also good, no overt sexual depictions and no language issues at all. It is fairly clean from that perspective.

The Bad – The second part is written in the second person about the new owner of the house. While it is not directly stated, the second owner is gay. There is a lot of alluding to it and that may be something people want to watch out for. It is heavily normalized in the book, so I would not recommend it for youth at all. Also, the third owner is gay as well, but it is not quite so obvious. The reason I mark this as bad is because there was no reason for it. I mean, just none. I am generally perturbed by sexual content or statements that are there for no reason, straight or gay. This was one of those.

The second part of the story has a lot of occult starting in it. They talk about seances and spirits in general. The third part of the story they have an actual seance and an excorsism. So, again, if this isn’t your cup of tea, I would not recommend reading it. Also, would not recommend for youth.

The third part when back to a first person narrative and was better, but nothing near the first part of the book. Also, the ending was such a let down. I won’t ruin it for anyone, but it was like someone said “Oh, well,” and all the ghost stuff was over. Disappointing.

The Ugly – Nothing outrageous here. Generally ok book with an interesting way to do a book. Like I said, the format captured me instantly because I wanted to know how the author did the rest of the book with that format. As mentioned above, mentions of the occult and sexual orientation are the only things that could be troubling to a sensitive reader.