Slade House

I really enjoyed this - the prose is nicely crafted without being overly self-conscious, and the story is creepy and unusual. The narrators are vividly drawn, and even if you don't like one as a person, you get their perspective and sympathize with their plight.

This falls short of a fifth star because it's a little too eager to explain everything that's happening. Norah and Jonah seem to have a compulsion to drop exposition in every conversation. I feel this would have been scarier and a bit more engaging if the reader had the opportunity to work things out, rather than having it dropped in your lap.

Still, I hit “critical mass” with this one about 50% of the way in. So if it had been more engaging, I might have had to take vacation days from work and neglect my children until I was done! Definitely recommended.

People keep disappearing every 9 years. The mysterious Slade House only shows up every 9 years. The story revolves around a pair of twins who seem to be immortal and people that are drawn to the iron door of Slade House or are looking for the door to it. But then are never seen again.
This was a strange book but it moved along quite nicely. I had previously read Cloud Atlas and it dragged so I was not sure I wanted to read this. But I am glad I was wrong.

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Only having read the blurb, I expected this to be a more or less classical haunted-house story. Little did I know that there is a whole Mitchell universe out there that connects several of his books! Since I've read The Bone Clocks before, it was fun looking for connections as soon as I realised they exist.

While I didn't get what I expected (though it was spooky), I absolutely liked what I got instead.

This was way scarier than I expected it to be after reading The Bone Clocks. Like all Mitchell's work, the writing is excellent and he slips between eras effortlessly, but boy do not read this right before going to bed like I did. if you're looking for a haunted house story to devour as quickly as possible, definitely check this out. I'd also really recommend reading The Bone Clocks first. You probably could read Slade House on its own, but that last chapter would be really confusing if you aren't familiar with Marinus.

Somewhere between 3/3.25 depending on my mood. 

Think many people would like it (probably people in my bookclub! Looking forward to hearing their thoughts) but this was not entirely for me. I don't think it was particularly creepy or horror as the “baddies” didn't get enough time for me to feel actually creeped out by them, but I tend to read a lot of those sort of books so perhaps I'm a bit numb to it. 

Struggled through the first 50 or so pages and then it picked up pace. The ending felt rushed and I wanted to know more about Marinus. His descriptions were good and the concept was very cool, but felt characters lacked a bit of substance. I'm not sure I'll read his other work - I couldn't watch much of Cloud Atlas when it came out, so maybe I best avoid! 

I've only read one other book by this author, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – which I thoroughly enjoyed. This one is a ghost story. I flew through it. And apparently he borrows both some ideas and some characters from The Bone Clocks in this story. It didn't matter to me. I thought the plot was pretty cool but now I know some key ideas behind the story of the The Bone Clocks, so it's not really on my To Read List any more. I prefer surprises. I really enjoy Mitchell's writing style. I'm sure I'll read more by him.

The second chapter of this book is written from the perspective of a divorced middle aged British man in the 80s. And he's less a character than a collection of disdainful cliches of what you expect divorced middle aged British man in the 80s to be like. Red flag.

The third chapter is written from the perspective of a college girl struggling with her weight. And as someone who has had his own weight-related struggles, it was actually kind of distressing to read David Mitchell's terrible writing with this character. Again, she's just a litany of disdainful fat-person cliches. I realise not all weight issues are the same and that I don't expect that my experience is universal but this was very plainly written by someone with an inability to properly empathise with a character beyond a bunch of superficial tropes.

Disappointing.

Not what I went looking for, but an entertaining time, regardless. As much supernatural mystery as horror, with some very creepy moments. Just enough world building/lore: never felt confused or overloaded, just intrigued. The ending works as is, but the last character introduced makes me want to read more in this universe.
 Cannot speak to neurodivergent rep, will leave that to own voices'. 
⚠️As the timeline starts in the past, you encounter period-typical attitudes and uncouth people and offensive language, ableism, racism, fatphobia, misogyny, also mention of ED.