Summary:
The King Family (no relation to Stephen) move from Los Angeles to Pinedale, a small mountain town (sound familiar?). Fifteen-year-old Xander is far from happy about the change. As an aspiring filmmaker and lover of movies, Xander wants nothing more than to stay in L.A. However, he and his younger siblings, David and Toria become mesmerized by the uniqueness of the sprawling seven bedroom Victorian that they move into. The only problem is that something is...off about the house. They end up discovering a portal to a different time and place, which makes Xander question if the Tardis-like passage is a blessing or a curse.
Review:
So this is the only book that I have read for the Book Pages Project so far
that I have absolutely disliked. The problem is that based on the title and the
summary, I expected this book to be at least somewhat scary--especially since
it is shelved as horror. This book is not scary in the least. The other issue
that I have with the book is that given that the protagonist is
fifteen-years-old, you would think that the writing style and plot would be
suited to teenagers; however, I found this book to be more akin to a middle
grade novel. Don't misunderstand me, I love middle grade novels, but that is
not what I was expecting from this book. I ultimately found this novel to be
really lackluster and honestly boring.
Also, I did not think that the plot was very cohesive, as a reader, it just
seemed like the author decided to take all these different elements and throw
them together rather than crafting a story that flows well. My biggest gripe
about this book is that it is the first in a series, and it ends on a
cliffhanger. So the book cannot even stand on its own. However, I could not
bring myself to care, so I will not be continuing the series. If I knew what
this novel was like going into it, I would have opted to read Goosebumps
instead. There is a pretty good twist in the novel, but I don’t feel like it
was foreshadowed very well. It just seemed like the twist was kind of thrown
out there in the end.
I didn’t even find any themes that adolescents could connect to, apart from
the obvious theme of moving to another city. There were no deep issue or
important themes discussed here, which is unfortunate. As young adult authors,
writers have an opportunity, and some might even say a responsibility, to
discuss issues that are prevalent among and often times not discussed enough concerning
adolescents.
House of Dark Shadows has a 3.88
rating on Goodreads out of 5,520 ratings, and there are six books in the
series, so obviously some people do like it, but I just don’t think it was well
done. Also, the summary is a little misleading. After I started reading the
novel and found out what it was actually about, I really did not care. I’m glad
to get this book off of my TBR and hopefully move on to more fulfilling and
entertaining reads.
