Customer Reviews

The Rousseau House

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

 

 

When I got this book, I was dismayed to see it was a self-published book, but I had nothing else to read, so I proceeded. I actually found it fairly engaging and enjoyable, with the distracting exceptions of when the writer had his(her?) characters switched and it was Nathanial when it should have been Frederick and so on. And other grammatical errors and typos. My advice to the author: have someone else read it before paying to have it printed.

The worst novel I have ever read. I cannot for the life of me understand how it got such overall good ratings.

Let's see . . . where to begin . . .

1) Where was this taking place? A mention was made about the kings of France, a chateau, and the surname Rousseau. Sounds French enough. But the main characters' names were English, or British anyway, and the town was called "Grendel" (a la the monster from the Old English epic, "Beowulf").

2) In which time period does this story take place? Some of the dialog was completely modern sounding, while other dialog seemed to be someone's idea of how people spoke in the 18th century.

3) What was the purpose of introducing the giant worm things? Where did they come from? Were they only in this town? After chasing the men out of town, where did they go? What happened to them in the end? It is almost like they were just thrown in there for sensations' sake, and then they disapeared into thin air.

4) Who created the shields, and why? Were they always evil, or did they turn evil over time? How did they end up in the chateau, and why? The history of the shields is completely unknown, except for the fact that one of the original owners (the son, I think) coveted them.

I'm sure there are other issues/discrepancies, but these are all I can remember, having read the book quite some time ago.

A good novel provides a sense of cohesiveness, by explaining all elements and how they fit together, with each element being addressed in some sort of resolution at the end. This novel did nothing of the kind. Lots of loose ends were left, and the overall feeling to me was that this was truly a sophomoric attempt at novel writing.

M.J. Konevich writes a novel with many great twist, turns, and surprises! I'm scared one minute, calm the next, and then I'm just waiting to see what's going to happen next. He has a gift for description and such flair for dialogue. I can't wait for his next book "The Woods around Carter's Lake."

Definitely someone to watch in the world of horror. I loved the story from beginning to end!