Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

La casa rossa by Mark Haddon

1 review

chalkletters's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Despite its fame, I’ve never actually read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, so going in I had no idea what a book written by Mark Haddon would be like. It was a gift, too, not something I’d picked out myself. I think I can safely say that I haven’t read anything else quite like it. 

The style was the first thing I noticed. Mark Haddon jumps between different perspectives on every page, and quite often the characters’ inner monologue seems to be primarily listing details they can see. Some of which definitely went over my head. It took me a little while to sink into, but it’s not so literary that it’s off-putting.

The characters themselves are deep and intricate. Almost every one of them has a secret of some kind. And as they’re cooped up together on holding bringing two different families together, those secrets rub up against one another as much as their personalities do. None of them are particularly nice people - but, of course, that’s the point. There’d be no family drama if they could all get along! 


The Red House is, truly, a slice of life story. You get one, time-limited glimpse into the lives and inner workings of all these people. Some of their conflicts are resolved by the end, but most are not. Which is true to life; everybody’s inner narrative doesn’t tie up in a nice neat bow all in the same week! Despite that, it’s satisfying and the ending doesn’t feel abrupt or unearned. 


The style of prose is probably not for everyone, but I came to enjoy it after a very brief period of initial uncertainty.
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