The Haunting of Hill House

Meghan and I chose this for our Nerdy Girl pick for October of last year. After a pretty steady stream of hits this was a low point in the book club. Stephen King calls this one of the finest horror novels of the 20th century. I have to respectfully disagree Mr. King! The story is tedious and predictable and characterization is a huge problem. The most interesting characters (Mrs. Dudley and Mrs. Montague) are barely in the book. Instead we’re stuck with four of the most boring and pretentious bunch of yappers you’d never want to meet. Eleanor’s inner conflict, which drives much of the action, has its creepy moments. But overall, The Haunting of Hill House reads like a short story puffed up to novel length with inane 1950s cocktail party dialogue. It's pretty bad when the scariest thing in the book is the prospect of being stuck in Hill House with the four main characters. I kept gleefully anticipating one of them meeting a horrible end. I can see how it may have been innovative at the time, but it’s been done since and done better and it’s not fair to make excuses when a book just doesn’t hold up. And what’s more – it’s not scary! But it is short and does has some undeniable campy appeal.