Bark at the Ghouls

"The house was vile. . . Hill House is vile, it is diseased, get away from here at once."

I’m stingy with my stars and gave out five of them to Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It had it all; quirky characters, creepy goings-on and dreadful deeds and I was expecting similarly great things from this classic.

Perhaps my expectations were too high or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood because I found this one slower than cold molasses with slightly over-the-top characters whose plight never grabbed me. It took me well over a week to finish this skinny little book. I know I’m slow but that’s ridiculous even for me. I’d pick it up, read a few pages and fall asleep. Once I even dropped the edge of this cursed book on my face as I nodded off and woke up with a welt on my chin. At least my husband, the NON reader I might add, had a great laugh. And still I plundered on. . . 

In the end, I never did connect with the story and it wasn’t able to infect me with insidious dread. I can’t quite pinpoint what went wrong besides the fact that there was too little spooky and too much yapping for me. What with all of the talking these people did, I never did learn much about them. The descriptions of the house were divine, however, and I would love to live there. 

I read this for Bingo. I'm all off track and have to figure out where I'm going to place it when I get my act back together. I don't even know what's been called at this point. Is there a master post of bingo calls somewhere?