The Haunting of Hill House

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Summary: This book is the most frightening thriller of all time.
Review: The Haunting Of Hill House, by master of fear Shirley Jackson, weaves all elements of mystery, psychodrama, and thriller into one haunting question never answered. The atmosphere is thick in all of Ms. Jackson's writing, but Hill House stands above the others because once the thrill ride of a novel comes to its end, the reader is left with a huge knot of not knowing what took place because of outside forces and what happened inside the characters' minds. As with all superior classic pieces of this genre, we have the desire to tuck the book away, maybe wash our hands, and begin watching shadows from the corner of our eye.

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Summary: Brilliant!!!
Review: Scared the hell out of me for the fourth time. No author dead or alive in my oppinion can beat her subtle horror.

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Summary: A "Haunting" of more than the house
Review: Fascinating on levels more inner - reaching than your typical "horror" story. Not only are we drawn into the idiosyncracies of the house in question, but the inner-workings of the characters and how they interact with one another. Ever been terrified by your own behavior in the presence of complete strangers? THIS is the most frightening thing about Jackson's story for me.

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Summary: Overrated
Review: The front cover of this book says, " Makes your blood chill and your scalp prickle....... Well, I must have read a different book. There was nothing scary about it. For a while I thought I was reading a comedy. The dialogue was simple and silly. The back cover of the book says that one of the characters (Theodora) is " a lovely and lighthearted assistant". Assistant? I must have missed something. As far as I'm concerned this was a waste of time.

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Summary: One of the handful of classics in the Horror Genre
Review: Too bad five stars is tops -- I'd add an extra for "Classic: status. It's interesting that the negative comments in other reviews tend to either expect there to be more action, more "shock value"(what do they want? Slice-and-dice stuff?) or less inwardness. Besides being exquisitely well written, it is a chilling vision of a psychological breakdown, and seen from the point of view of the incipient madwoman -- Eleanor's madness is plain from her thoughts far earlier than she gives evidence of it in her actions. It's phemonenally creepy -- shocking it needn't be. And it has perhaps the best single beginning (and ending) paragraph in the entire genre of horror/occult/ghost story literature, which the editors of the current Penguin edition perspicaciously frame, all alone, on the opening page. The sine qua non of horror literature! Ranks with the very best of Lovecraft, Machen, Stoker, Bierce and Poe.

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Summary: A Seduction of a Story
Review: "The Haunting of Hill House" is probably the best subjective description of a haunting ever written in the English language. It is frightening: from the inside-out. It is Jackson's masterpiece. No wonder then that other masters of the genre have so admired & emulated this book: for this is top-quality story-telling. (I am convinced, for example, that Stephen King modeled much of "The Shining" after "The Haunting of Hill House".) The famous first paragraph of this book is seductive. And I think that seduction is what Jackson pulls off so well here. We are drawn into the house. The house is the main character, present & witnessing in every scene: yet somehow elusive. This is a book in which to dwell. I wonder if those who complain about "seeing the ending of the book coming" aren't hurling themselves thru the book too fast, projecting. "Hill House" is one of those Russian-boxes of a place, rooms that never seem to quite reveal themselves fully. "The Haunting of Hill House" is one of the few pieces of writing that physically made all the hair stand up on the back of my neck as I read. Brilliant!

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Summary: A True Classic! A Scary Book for "Readers"
Review: If your favorite books are the ones where you don't notice the mechanics of writing, but still pause to savour the way a phrase was crafted; if your favorite authors are the ones whose descriptive talents make it possible for you to sketch -in detail and years later - a house, a compound, the main street; if you believe suspense and fright are created in the mind and not the eye; this is your kind of scary book. The writing is good enough that of all the books made into movies, this is the only one I am aware of that took the dialogue VERBATIM and set design exactly from the book to the screen.

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Summary: Eleanor is The Key of this Book
Review: I think this is not an horror book, if you are looking for something about that, go away..:) The power of this book is in the Main Charather, Eleanor, The reader will known very well her personality, this is an unique experience of immersion....A MUST READ.

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Summary: This is scary???
Review: I don't get all the fuss about this book, it certainly didn't cause me to lose any sleep. I did enjoy the book on other levels though. I found the main character Eleanor to be interesting: not quite sure how to behave out on her own for the first time and in the presence of strangers but supremely happy in her cicumstances. The underlying tension between her and Theodora was nicely developed I thought - was there just a sisterly friendship between them or was there a spark of physical attraction there too, was it love or was it hate, or was it a little of both - very complex! The dialogue and give and take between the four main characters was clever, I found myself wishing that I could be that witty and spontaneous in my conversations in spots. The ending was not very suspensful, in fact it was predictable. I enjoyed many things about this book, especially Jackson's handling of the main characters, but I read this book expecting to be scared (judging by the other reviews), and on that count I was disappointed.

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Summary: Frightening as all get out, but unsatisfying
Review: True, this is one of the scariest books ever written. You'll be drawn right along with it until the end when...well, when it peters out. Jackson's let her books descend into psychological murkiness before (e.g. _Hangsaman_), but it is especially disappointing here, because the setup is so dang good. Definitely worth a read, but prepare to be unsatisfied. Go right from this to _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ or _The Sundial_ to wash the bad taste from your mouth.