House of Dark Shadows by Robert Liparulo

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.