A review by usbsticky
House of Echoes by Brendan Duffy
2.0
I got this book because I really liked his other book "The Storm King". I took a look at the review I wrote for that book before and kind of feel the same way. It has a really nice build up but there are a lot of things going on and it feels a bit disjointed. I wanted to follow the main storyline but it veers in other directions. Partway into the child's POV several chapters in, it mentioned Heck and I realized that I didn't know who Heck was and when this "character" had come in. Was it real or an imaginary friend? Was it the dog? No, that was Hudson. (Edit: I found Heck using the search function and he's a character in a book that Charlie had been reading. I was confused because that chapter started mentioning him as if he was a real person.)
I dnf'd at 17% of book read because I felt the build up was too long and it was going too many places at once. Was the mother going to make an appearance or was the whole mother story a dead end? The dynamic between Ben and his wife was getting too drawn out. Why wasn't Ben more interested in the deer? What's going to happen with Charlie? I think there's a way to make each subplot more interesting or something I wanted to follow but I just found them annoying.
I read over parts of the book again and just find the writing a bit confusing (as the last book). I'm sticking with my decision to dnf the book.
I dnf'd at 17% of book read because I felt the build up was too long and it was going too many places at once. Was the mother going to make an appearance or was the whole mother story a dead end? The dynamic between Ben and his wife was getting too drawn out. Why wasn't Ben more interested in the deer? What's going to happen with Charlie? I think there's a way to make each subplot more interesting or something I wanted to follow but I just found them annoying.
I read over parts of the book again and just find the writing a bit confusing (as the last book). I'm sticking with my decision to dnf the book.