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Summary: Great novel dealing with psycological meanings and symbolism
Review: This was a well written horror novel. In the Haunting of Hill House the old mansion has many symbolic meanings. It serves as Eleanor's lover and rescuer at the end of the tale. Jackson is the master of suspence and this book will definately send chills down your spine.
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Summary: NEVER read this during daytime...
Review: This book is perfect. A perfect cover, simple yet suiting. A perfect touch, pleasant, like velvet. A perfect story, albeit horrifying...Shirley Jackson is(was) the perfect writer, whom just couldn't fail at what she does(did) best... She creates her own world, as realistic as ours, with a tragic, cruel, and cursed history for Hill House, the main character, and it's inhabitants. Perfect. All the characters aren't stereotypes; they're human. Eleanor might be an oddball hysteric, but she has a past which has made her that way. There are only about 4 actual hauntings in this book, but more than enough eerie sections, which are the real creepers... For instance, Eleanor's frolick through the house one night when all the others are sleeping, and her mood swing and sudden revulsion for her new best friend, Theodora, which just creeped me out. In the beginning when they had become immediate friends and were comparing themselves and their relatives to each other, they had marked themselves as obvious cousins. Readers of the book have to admit, in the part where Theodora must move into Eleanor's room because of the supernatural phenomena which had taken place in hers and she states cheerfully the two will be just like sisters, they were freaked the moment they read Eleanor simply say, spitefully, and out of earshot, "Cousins." NEVER read this book during daytime, as I made that mistake never to read a page after nightfall... It still scared me, but it was ruined by my cowardice. The more this book scares you, the more you'll like it. After all, why would you keep reading it if you don't want to?
Rating: 
Summary: STAY AWAY if you're a "shallow" reader
Review: As a highschool student, it was quite difficult to understand. I found it very confusing and I was unsure what was going on much of the time. This book requires a deep understanding that much of the younger audiences probably would not have.
Rating: 
Summary: One Of The Best Books I've Read
Review: I really loved this book. I'm usually not a scary book or movie type person but something about both the book and movie made me want to be scared silly. One thing I can definitley say is that I cannot wait for the remake to come out.
Rating: 
Summary: Not very Engrossing or Scary
Review: I found the book to be rather slow moving and not very suspenseful. The ending was of no surprise. Perhaps this "classic" has not aged well. By today's standards it is downright tepid.
Rating: 
Summary: I am amazed at all the raves because I think it's trash!
Review: The writing is sloppy; the characters stereotypes (tho' I will grant that Jackson may have created the stereotypes); the motivations weak; the story totally implausible; the internal logic non-existant. Is there some kind of mass hypnosis going on that accounts for the feelings of horror and pleasure among the readers?
Rating:
Summary: Most Frightening
Review: This is the scariest book I have ever read. Jackson preys upon the worst fears, thing at the door, the thing in bed with you. She creates an atomsphere of unnamable fear. Nothing is ever defined. There are no answers. After I finished this book, I couldn't sleep comfortably for days. She introduces you to fear and leaves you there for your mind to create its own scenarios.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best horror novels of all time...
Review: This is definitely one of those books that "gets under your skin" without you even knowing it. Without resorting to cheap thrills and creaky ghost cliches, Shirley Jackson crafts a horrifying story about a haunted house that figuratively "devours" people -- and we must live in the mind of its current victim! The prose style and the deft handling of this difficult bit of perspective are unmatched in horror literature. Once you read that opening paragraph, you too will find that you can never escape from Hill House... for there's nothing you can do if it doesn't want you to leave...
Rating:
Summary: This book was promising but disappointing.
Review: I have to say, this book had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it needed to be about 300 pages longer! It's not until almost halfway through the book that 'the cast' finally arrives at Hill House, and by that point I was already worried that a lot would be left out. It turns out my fears were well grounded, because Shirley Jackson only briefly touches on the actual haunting, and in about 100 pages the characters go through drastic changes, the book comes to a staggeringly abrupt conclusion, and you're left with your head spinning and no feeling of depth. I read this book hoping it would be along the same lines as "Nazareth Hill" which scared me to death! But I was never scared and was actually rather annoyed by the time I had finished this book. So, if you only have two days, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: A dream in full color
Review: I first read this when I was 10. My mother handed me a beat up old copy with the pages falling out. I read it over and over as I was growing up. Now I'm 22 and it is still one of my favorite books ever. Shirley Jackson writes with such detail that you must read it more than once; the pictures she creates are at times like confections of the fanciful mind and at others, undiluted psychological terror. What makes this book the success that it is, what makes it *scary*, if you will, is the unsettling realization that this is not blood and gore. It is not cheap horror. It is all played out in the mind of a woman called Eleanor. That just makes it so much more *real*.
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