The House by Bentley Little Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The House
Book Review: Bentley's Worst Ever
Summary: 1 Stars
"The House" is so unspeakably stupid it's difficult to find the ways to describe it. The pacing, the plot, the characters, the ending, the gore/sex content...they're all extremely flimsy at the very best. My 12 year old daughter has written more gripping stories than "The House". It's even worse than "The Walking", and that must have taken some serious effort to be able to accomplish.
This is just a convoluted, confusing mess and how it ever got published is beyond me. If you're looking for scrap paper to burn in your fireplace, than "The House" is definitely the book to buy.
Book Review: DOWN and DIRTY!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
I don't get all the negative reviews concerning this book. Although sometimes it did seem Bentley did try for shock effect a little too much, this book was stil unique, creepy as hell, and will never be forgotten by anyone who reads it. The little girl is chilling and just plain nasty...I felt like a good long shower after reading this one. The plot is a complex maze you won't be able to figure out until the ending. Characters seemed genuine. The atmosphere was just plain dark and almost...forbidden. The pages are almost visually covered in grime and nastiness. Book Review: Want to waste time and be embarassed?
Summary: 4 Stars
A supernatural force summons five people to return to their childhood home, a spooky house whose hidden secrets have cast a shadow over their adult lives. There the five strangers must uncover and confront the evil of the house, risking death and damnation to escape its grasp.
This book reads more like a short story than a novel. It is short, superficial and simplistic. That said, it's a good pick if your looking for some trashy shock-horror. At its best its a little spooky. Like when a guy walks into the bathroom of an empty movie theatre and finds fruit salad in the toilet. Makes you think "what kind of a psycho would bring a fruit salad into a public restroom? What deranged mind would then dump it in the toilet? Is he hiding in here, watching my reaction with sick fascination? Since when do they serve fruit salad in theatres?" Brrrr... this gave me the chills. At its worst, it resorts to cheap shock tactics that leave the reader feeling embarassed and insulted. For instance the frequent scenes in which a retarded, demonically-possessed ten year old girl begs for sex. This is handled with such coarseness it kills the suspense generated in other scenes. It feels like the book is setting aside the story for a moment to scream in your face, "Look at how controversial I am!".
If you're looking for a lightning quick, trashy, no-brainer, this book is a great one! Since this is what its intended to be, I can't really fault it. BUT if you are looking for a good haunted house novel, try Hell House, House of Bones or The House that Jack Built, they are far better.
Book Review: Good, but not Little's best
Summary: 4 Stars
Bentley Little is a horror writer, but it would actually be better to say he is two horror writers. For some of his books, he writes a straightforward horror story , which - while well-written - is similar to the output of a number of other authors. In other books, however, he uses horror as a device for satire, and in these works, he has carved his own niche in the genre. He can take an ordinary concept: insurance or a superstore or a homeowners association and take it to a terrifying extreme. When I pick up a Little book, I always look for one of his sharp satires, but if I get a more standard story, I know I will still get a good read.
The House is one of these straightforward horror stories, principally unusual in its telling. Essentially, the House is five parallel stories of characters who - although they have little in common - have similarly haunted pasts. Each character is separately compelled to go to the house of their childhood; though each character grew up in different locations, there are some distinct similarities between the houses.
While decent enough, this is not one of Little's better works. The lack of a central character is part of the problem. Things could also be explained a bit better: it's one thing to have ambiguities and its another thing to be unclear, and sometimes this book tends toward the latter. Nonetheless, this is an entertaining read, imperfect but good enough to merit a weak four stars. As an introduction to Little, you are probably better with one of his more clever satires such as The Policy or The Ignored, but if you are looking for a straight horror novel, this will be a pleasant diversion.
Book Review: Do You Do D?j? Vu?
Summary: 2 Stars
This novel purports to tell the story of 5 characters who have experienced similar childhoods and have to go back and confront their pasts and The House to which they're all bound. Unfortunately, the book tells the same story five times; details may be different, but the conclusions are the same (sort of a reverse Rashomon). Several times I found myself thinking "didn't I already read that?" and after going back a few chapters discovering the same sentence or paragraph with only minor changes. Once the characters meet up in the middle of the book things pick up a bit, as Little continues a single storyline from the different perspective of each character, but before long we're slogging through multiple retellings of similar stories again. The fact you have to endure the same pedophiliac sequences again and again (and again and again and again) for each of the five characters takes it from the repulsive effect Little was (hopefully) going for, to repugnant (and being disgusted with Little instead of his characters), to finally just eeeewwww and wanting to be able to take your brain out and wash off the muck.
And let's talk about the hypersexed eleven-year-old, shall we? We're told time and again (and again ... well you get the idea) that she wanted the characters to do unnatural things with and to her. Pardon me for being brought up right, but there are NO natural sex acts where an eleven-year-old is concerned. The fact that Little seems to think there are makes me have serious doubts that I'll ever read anything else he's written, even the books other reviewers have recommended instead of this one.
Rant over. I feel better now.
Whether you read or have read other books by Little, do yourself a favor and skip this one. It's essentially a 100-150 page novella padded to 350+ pages. There are a few good sections and interesting turns of phrase, but most of the shocks are either overanalyzed so they lose their effectiveness or repeated so often as to become meaningless. Consider a werewolf jumping out of a closet and quickly devouring someone in a messy fashion - that's potentially scary (there are no werewolves in this book, so I haven't spoiled anything for you). Now consider a werewolf jumping out of the closet, freezing in mid-air a la The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, as we take a trip around its leaping form analyzing its yellowed teeth, matted fur, general stinkiness, etc. - by the time the werewolf unfreezes, the scene's literally lost all its momentum, so even if the beast chows down the impact is greatly reduced. Now repeat that three or four times and you've got one yawner of a book.
The House had potential when it started out, but I'll take the B-movie with William Katt and a similar name over this book any day of the week.