The general theory of haunting ~ Richard Easter ☆ Review

**Disclamer: I did received this book via NetGalley. This had in no way, shape or form affected my opinion on it.** 

 

Here’s my first review of my October tbr, yay !! So, of course this totally not ended up as what I thought it would be – but actually not that bad either – just not something i’d qualify as a “real ghost story” (aka something that really happened to someone), but rather an act of fiction.

This book was published in December 2017 by Endeavour Media; I requested it via NetGalley in July 2018.

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Goodreads page

My review;

3.5 / 5 stars ; I liked it, but nothing more. The ending, of course, led me into tears.

** Trigger warning; include a scene going over the death of a child and a suicide attempt; Also, from my perspective, most of the characters has some kind of mental health issue and/or addiction (alcohol). **

 

✘  At first i wasn’t so sure of the historical part, as it isn’t my favorite, but it seems to go hand in hand with horror so perfectly.

✘ This book somehow soothes me and drives me to sleep, while in the same time wrap me in it’s bizarre, unsettling feeling of said house; The atmosphere of you thinking there’s someone there with them .. when no, maybe not.

✘ This was a harder book for me; Not only as it had the historical, but the english was more of higher level and we had atleast 4 differents point of view. It definately needed more concentration for me to avoid being lost in the story. We also have two different time points, the present (2018) and the past (1809).

✘ There’s some notions of physics – both equations and theories

✘ « Once again, francis saw that Patience bent the world around her. She decided things should be just so, and in doing, made them just so. »

 

As the first horror book that i’m reading, I quite loved the atmosphere even as it wierdly soothed me to sleep in a way. However, this book wasn’t the non-fiction I would’ve thought it was by the title of it, and to be honest even if I liked it; I just think it went kind of slow.. and thus the book felt long to me. Instead of horror escalating, it just kind of went up, stalled for a while, to go up again, stalled, and so on. I would’ve prefered the horror to keep escalating and really make me hold my breath – and that wasn’t the case here.

As for the characters … I don’t know, I didn’t particularly liked any of them. To me, it sounded like they all had something “wrong” with them; either mentally, an adiction, or even a rough past, which was kinda eh. I also prefer biology much more than physics, and the characters being so obsessed with the physics of the Marryman’s hall and how the hall was working all together with it’s wierd circular shape didn’t interrested me much. Added to that the multiple (atleast 5+) character’s POV, harder english and the jump in times which tend to have me needing to go and reread some stuff.. I’m giving it 3 stars and a half, as I did wanted to know what in hell was going on there in despice of all that and that kept me from DNFing it – aha. Could’ve been better in my opinion, but a good start into horror nonetheless.

The ending was not anything I would’ve had suspected ! I was in shock to see how everything unfolded before my eyes. Alas, I found what the Marryman Hall was hiding and the end and what it all meant left me in tears.