Rating: 
Summary: If Danielle Steel and Stephen King built a house...
Review: This book is an odd mix of novel and horror story. Picture an idyllic street with upper class residents whose biggest problem is a neighbor who seems to breed annoying children yearly. Suddenly, a vacant lot, seemingly too small and oddly shaped to build on, is sold and a house goes up. Once in progress, bad luck begins to befall the builders and their architect. At the housewarming party, a shocking event leads to tragedy, causing the owners to move and sell the home. Fast forward through two more similar, yet still interesting, scenarios and towards an ending that is a bit less than satisfying and you've got "The House Next Door."The strength of this book lies in the fact that the story keeps your attention long enough to get you from one shocking revelation to the next. The weaknesses (note the plural) don't ruin the book, but do make it less enjoyable than it might be otherwise. First, the writing is adjective and metaphor rich, often to the detriment of the storyline. I'd occasionally find myself needing to re-read a sentence or paragraph in order to wade through the language to get to the actual point. Second, the characters are a little "too" highbrow to be sympathetic. They belong to the ballet guild and the Junior League, lunch at the club, and describe friends and colleagues as being from "substantial" families. Their biggest problem seems to be having one martini too many at the semi-formal neighborhood party to make tomorrow's 8:00am tennis date. At times, I found myself wishing something terrible would befall them just to bring them down a notch. As for the ending, it left me wanting. It wrapped up the bigger story, but left some of the lesser details without resolution. I actually flipped the last page back and forth a couple of times to make sure I didn't miss something! All in all, I'm glad I read the book. It was enjoyable, different, and surprising at times. I recommend it to anyone wanting a casual, not-too-involved read.
Rating: 
Summary: Eerie and lingers with you
Review: This is certainly not your average haunted house book. There are no nasty shock tactics, no gruesome depictions of gore, and no hideous monsters waiting in dark corners. There is just a magnificent modern and newly built house, which in its own quiet way wreaks havoc on the lives of its unfortunate 3 successive owners, and in turn, the peaceful and prosperous neighbourhood in which it is built.
What is clever in this novel is the introduction of things that are happening in our society, including some quite horrific things, which are frequently and quietly ignored if not accepted. This forms an eerie basis for the things that are to come. The unnatural closeness of a father and his daughter; the spectre of the loss of a child and the resultant mental illness; the suggestion of domestic violence. The author weaves these themes cleverly into the occupants of the house next door, and you just know that some further bad things are going to happen.
At its best level this book is a psychological chiller. The families involved clearly have issues and unfortunate lives - are the things that happen to them simply further misfortunes? Are the caring neighbours who begin to recognise the growing menace that the house next door represents themselves slipping into paranoia and their own mental illness? It is a very clever book - very clever indeed.
This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. I find myself considering its themes of quiet madness in leafy suburbia, intertwined with the great gothic themes of a haunted house, and I think that it is one of the best books I have read in ages, and one that I recommend highly.
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