Customer Reviews

House

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is a page turner. I couldn't put it down! Every time I finished a chapter, I couldn't help but peek to see how the next chapter would begin. I do not wish to spoil the story, but I would like to point out that it is a psychological thriller, and I would not recommend it for anyone younger than 15 years old due to some of the creepy characters with shady pasts. I definitely recommend reading the book before watching the movie, because without a background knowledge of the storyline from the book, the movie can be confusing. The book was definitely better than movie because the book was more engaging and thorough.

I assume that the negative ratings for this book are due to lack of understanding. It does offer a lot of twists and turns, just try to keep up. It is worth it!

I checked this book out from the library. I have thoroughly enjoyed other books by Frank Peretti, but this one is a dud. I kept reading, thinking it had to get better. I was wrong. It made no sense. I couldn't find the moral of the story and well quite frankly it is the worst book I ever remember reading.

Having read many of Peretti's other books over the years, I felt let down by this one. I was very excited to read it and very bewildered when I finally put it down. I read it about a year ago, and am just writing the review now, but I can tell you that the most memorable thing about this book was how bad it was.

First of all, the characters are very difficult to relate to, or even care about. A scary book full of annoying characters loses some of its scariness if you don't care which of them die. This is probably the most important flaw in this book.

Second, there is no point, or too many points, or disorganized points, or something. Maybe I somehow missed the point of this book, but it seemed to me that I waded through pages and pages of pointless terror and rapid twists and turns waiting for the big moment, or big explanation, or big SOMETHING and it never happened. The book just finally ended. You can have almost the same experience of reading this book you would get from reading the dust-jacket only. It's a little scarier and more graphic on the inside, but not at all satisfying. Other books by Peretti have mysteries to solve (e.g. Monster, Hangman's Curse) that are both more interesting and less confusing than this book.

In sum, this book for me was a lot like my experience of the latest Indiana Jones movie (you know, with the aliens: a total cop-out). It had some of the thrills of previous books, but ultimately failed to deliver what I expected. Actually, I would much rather watch the new Indiana Jones movie again than read this book, because I actually got some enjoyment out of the thrills Indiana Jones had along the way, whereas the thrills in House were so mediocre (and depressing) I would never have continued reading if I had known it was leading nowhere.

"House", co-authored by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, should stand as an example of self-publishing and Print on Demand (POD) , as well as why some authors use these types of methods to appear in print when no standard publisher or agent will take them.

I checked this book out from my local library, intrigued by the cover and the dust-jacket flap descriptions of the two authors. In all honesty, I won't even be finishing this read; I simply cannot bring myself to wade through additional chapters of poor writing and punctuation, non-existent editing, and flat, one-dimensional characters.

Here is just one, brief example of the text contained within the pages of "House":


"Jack spied the shotgun, the one Betty had hauled into Pete's room. Leaning against the desk. He let the spade clatter to the floor, snatched up the better weapon." (Quotation marks added to show direct quoted lines from the text.)


This short excerpt (above) is riddled with punctuation errors, fragmented sentences, and shifts in tense. Imagine attempting to read an entire 300+-page book lacking common high-school-aged skill in grammar.

I am disappointed with what could have been a captivating read and with being forced to issue this book even a one star rating. This one clearly deserves one-half star or less.


Just this short excerpt is riddled with punctuation errors, fragmented sentences, and shifts in tense. Imagine attempting to read an entire 300+ page book lacking common high-school-aged skill in grammar.

I am disappointed with what could have been a captivating read and with being forced to issue this book even one star for a rating. This one clearly deserves one-half star or less.