I took this one upstairs to finish reading it, which ordinarily, is a good sign, but not in this case. I just wanted to finish reading it, as it’s taken me 3 days to get through it. In fact, the book is still upstairs as I’m writing this, and I can’t actually remember what it’s called – oh no I’ve just had my memory pinged – The Crooked House.
I’m sure that there are lots of people who would enjoy this, but I found it really oppressive. It was like being suffocated by darkness from the outset.
The premise of the story is interesting enough, but it was the execution (no pun intended) of it that I found so off-putting. The murderer is blindingly obvious from very early on, and quite why it took Esme/Alison so long to discover it is beyond me. But it’s not even this that is the real problem for me. I just found myself having to read and reread sentences because they just weren’t going in.
It was so darn and written in what felt like such a matter of fact way, that it was hard to feel comfortable with it. I got no real sense of the characters, with the vague exception of Esme, but even then I wasn’t that committed to her. I’m finding it quite hard to come up with anything I like about The Crooked House – it really just wasn’t for me.
An arduous slog rather than an enjoyable read.
