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A review by laurenisallbooked
The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
4.0
Fun novel about community, relationships, identity and choosing your own luck. I loved the reverse chronological order (1999, 1955, 1929, 1900), the way each section gave you sneak peeks into the previous era, and how characters mirrored each other in their search for autonomy, meaningful art, and love.
Some parts were a horror story, others were a beach read, and everything had an undercurrent of mystery that kept the plot moving forward. The pacing was sometimes clunky (to be expected when you add 9 new characters 250 pages into a book), and the brief pages we spent with the characters from 1955 and 1929 made it harder to connect with them compared to the 1999 group. The way the book gave you clues to uncover was a thrill and made me want to flip back and find the reference from a previous time period to see how the puzzle fit together. It all evened out to an enjoyable book.
"We aren't haunted by the dead, but by the impossible reach of history. By how unknowable these others are to us, how unfathomable we'd be to them." 1999
"Zilla's always thought of Laurelfield as a magnet, drawing her back again and again. But that's just it: a magnet pulls you toward the future. Objects are normally products of their pasts, their composition and inertia. But nest s magnet, they are moved by where they'll be in the next instant. And this, this, is the core of the strange vertigo she feels near Laurelfield. This is a place where people aren't so much haunted by their pasts as they are unknowingly hurtled toward specific and inexorable destinations." 1929
Some parts were a horror story, others were a beach read, and everything had an undercurrent of mystery that kept the plot moving forward. The pacing was sometimes clunky (to be expected when you add 9 new characters 250 pages into a book), and the brief pages we spent with the characters from 1955 and 1929 made it harder to connect with them compared to the 1999 group. The way the book gave you clues to uncover was a thrill and made me want to flip back and find the reference from a previous time period to see how the puzzle fit together. It all evened out to an enjoyable book.
"We aren't haunted by the dead, but by the impossible reach of history. By how unknowable these others are to us, how unfathomable we'd be to them." 1999
"Zilla's always thought of Laurelfield as a magnet, drawing her back again and again. But that's just it: a magnet pulls you toward the future. Objects are normally products of their pasts, their composition and inertia. But nest s magnet, they are moved by where they'll be in the next instant. And this, this, is the core of the strange vertigo she feels near Laurelfield. This is a place where people aren't so much haunted by their pasts as they are unknowingly hurtled toward specific and inexorable destinations." 1929