Reviews

Haunted House by Jack Kilborn

yourfuturecoolaunt's review

5.0

I FREAKING LOVE MONI.
And Mathison.
And Fran.
the FMCs are so badass as always.
i was wondering if this was actually paranormal at first. God i love these books.

viktoriya's review against another edition

2.0

This book started off quite good, the plot was intriguing and I was expecting a thrilling (and maybe even a scary) tale. However, that didn't last long. I never got any tension from reading this book. I mean, it's a haunted house, there are horrors inside, but it all felt very cartoonish. And then enters a dog, wearing a bullet-proof vest with a saddle seat on top for a MONKEY...Yes, a freaking monkey....I just burst out laughing. I thought this was supposed to be a scary book...

Also, the book is very poorly edited: the dates don't add up, genders are mixed up, the names are wrong, locations are named incorrectly. Weird..

bloodonsnow's review against another edition

3.0

This is one of those books I feel guilty for enjoying. It's kind of like an action movie: you won't be moved or feel better about yourself for liking it, but you may.

The monkey was cute too. GDI.

bxermom's review

5.0

I love Jack Kilborn's books!

jenjmarch's review

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

rbdcaanada's review

4.0

pretty good story...interesting concept - bringing characters from 5 or 6 books and putting them all together.

chmccann's review

2.0

This wasn't really my cup of tea. The genre isn't "haunted house" so much as "torture porn" - so if you delight in spooky more than bloody, I don't recommend this.

I also feel like it was pretty amateurish in its style - very much airport-shop level writing. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, if you're in the mood. Hell, I have a couple of favorite Dean Koontz novels. But in this case the silliness became distracting for me.

I think the height of absurdity came when (spoilers follow):

Spoiler

during the climactic battle, there's a pivotal fight between super-intelligent battle monkeys. Yes, really. And it's not approached tongue-in-cheek at all. Dead serious super-intelligent battle monkey fight. The other thing that leaped out at me was that one character's traumatic backstory involved her being stranded on an island with a bunch of cannibals AND a serial killer. I don't know - maybe this IS all meant satirically after all? But still, the bad guys are ciphers or downright absurd (so boring), and all the good guys survive and pretty much live happily ever after (also boring).

It had a few scary or funny moments, and if you want something lightweight and dig violent horror, you might want to check it out. Just not a great read for me.

odustin's review

3.0

This book is ok. It is definitely the worst of the series and sadly I was looking forward to it with all of the returning characters in one book, but sadly it was just ok. Not terrible but not great. If you have read all of the others its worth checking out, but if you plan on reading as a stand alone don't. Pick up one of the other 3 in the series, because the others are really good.

gizmoto16's review

4.0

I loved having all the survivors from other books show up here. It was a real page turner and I couldn't put it down.

rngilmer's review

3.0

The first half of this book was really great! I loved the humor, the scares were pretty legit, and I could not WAIT to read about the terrifying Butler House. But about halfway through, you figure out the house isn't really haunted, the characters are confusing and hard to keep track of, and it went from being kind of punny to trying much too hard to be funny. If this could have kept the momentum from the beginning, it probably would've been an A+ book. As is, I'd give it a C-. It gets three stars simply because of Mathison and Woof, whom I had more fun reading about than any of the human characters.