Devil House

Devil House can be a challenging read for a variety of reasons, but none moreso than the typeface used for Part 4: The Song of Gorbonian. I really thought his name was Borbonian for a while there. This font had me thinking a GD G was a GD B. This book is messed up. Geyond messed up.

This book wasn't at all what I expected. There were things about it that I really liked, things I could have gone without, and things I struggled to understand, but all of it together seems like a choice which is what really matters to me.

It's hard to write about this book without really coloring the telling with one's own point of view. But I'm on the other side of this book and you probably aren't, so I won't even try to explain it.

I like Darnielle's voice and I like how his characters move through the world and look at their lives and themselves and the choices they've made. This book does that.

ETA: almost six months later, I still think about this book often. Especially the surprising style shift and the ending. It won't usurp WiWV (one of my favorite books of the past several years), but I really can't wait until Darnielle comes out with another book.

Really love what this has to say about the true crime genre in general. At its best when describing nostalgia for childhood.

I abandoned this too late with just an hour to go. I wish I stopped earlier.

I think this started off great but I didn't enjoy the pace. I think this book was also over hyped.

Just a meh read

This book was maybe maybe 1.5 stars. I am too annoyed to round up. If you picked up this book because it has a neat cover, run away. Run away! The entire meat of the review will be spoilered because I am too annoyed too pussy foot and avoid spoilers.
I picked up this book because a) The cover was very cool. b) I wanted to read something different from what I read recently. C) I liked the idea of a fictional true crime writer. For various reasons I no longer consume most true crime. Boy howdy do I have some regrets. I started to get annoyed at about the 50% point but I was convinced the book would get good again like towards the beginning. I was WRONG.Weird things this book did in no particular order:Described scenes in fake medieval because of one metaphor about a knight protecting his castle.Had entire knight and castle portion in another font with no explanation. From what I can tell in other reviews no one else knows why this section was included eitherLied about the fake true crime, *inconsistently*Had the big reveal about the narrator having a screw loose in the last chapter with very little lead up.Included random sections from the other fake true crime book the MC wrote.Gave an entire summary of a letter a victims mother wrote complete with the MC's responses.Implied to MC is *so conflicted* they aren't sure if they can publish their terrible book. This had some lead up but very boring pay off. Why does he care so much about random homeless men?? I need answers this book has denied me.Seriously dude, do you need an intervention??? Did your writers group vote you off the island??

This is not a Horror book...at all!

This novel evaded my expectations all the way through until the last few pages. The main character is a writer of true crime books who moves into a building where a grisly double murder occurred in the 1980's, with the intent to investigate and write his next book about what really happened there. We learn that his first book, about a woman who killed her teenage attackers and inexplicably dismembered them and tried to throw their bodies in the ocean, was successful enough to be made into a movie. There is enough gruesome detail and enough inhabiting the lives of the people involved in these murders to be creepy, more than a little disturbing, but this book is definitely not horror. Nor is it exactly a mystery. True, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Devil House murders and certainly the character of Gage Chandler wants to get at the truth, but it's not clear that the story is going to deliver on that.

Wherever it was going, I was willing to follow, though, even through some abrupt changes of perspective and style. This was a highly readable book. It had an aura of 1970's-‘80's nostalgia that drew me in, reminding me of the so-called “Satanic Panic” of my adolescence. There were some portrayals of adolescent and teenage friendship that were deep, nuanced, and very much of the time period that made the story irresistible to me. The end was not at all what I expected, but once I read it I could look back and see how the roots of the ending went far back into the book. It did not just pop out of nowhere.

The White Witch parts of this book and the parts telling the teens' stories were really well done, but felt entirely out of place juxtaposed with rest, some of which was boring or nonsensical. The ending was a disappointment. It felt like two books in one- a good one and a bad one. 2.5 stars rounded down.

I am kinda mad because I work at the library and I checked this book out to a patron and said, “Oh, I am reading this book too!” and he said, “How are you liking it?” I replied, “I am about half way through and I am enjoying it thus far!” Now the patron is going to come back and try to talk to me about it and I will have to say, “I didn't get it.” I don't like that.

A terrifying, ergodic meditation on what it means to write—and consume—true crime.

Unreasonably good. Takes true crime from genre to subject in and of itself. This gave me words I've been looking for for a long time to describe how I feel about the true crime zeitgeist and then some

Wildly smart and almost unbearably empathetic.

John never misses. For me, the best of his novels thus far (All of which I've loved).