Sabrina Haskins and her family have just moved into their dream home, a gorgeous Craftsman in the rapidly-growing Southwestern city of Jackson Hill. Sabrina’s a bored and disillusioned home-maker, Hal a reverse mortgage salesman with a penchant for ill-timed sports analogies. Their two children, Damien and Michaela, are bright and precocious.
At first glance, the house is perfect. But things aren’t what they seem.
Sabrina’s hearing odd noises, seeing strange visions. Their neighbors are odd or absent. And Sabrina’s already-fraught relationship with her son is about to be tested in a way no parent could ever imagine.
Because while the Haskins family might be the newest owners of 4596 James Circle, they’re far from its only residents…
First impressions: it suffers a bit from the Indie Look and Indie Editing. While reading, I get the impression that this would be much better presented on screen. It makes me stop for a second and wonder, “Is this what I’m doing in my own writing?”
Holding it, one can tell straight away it’s a print-on-demand book. It’s the paper weight, the stiffness, the very smooth paper and the weak typesetting. My own PoD books look much the same, and I’m not trashing it— I’m in awe I found this at a bookstore. Granted, it was an indie bookstore, and I’ve heard of this book before I even found it. I had been debating on buying the ebook version but this one popped up and I figured I’d pick it up. Has anyone ever heard of my writing? Unlikely.
Nitpicky nonsense aside, it has a satirical air about it.
So I wrote that weeks ago, when I first picked up the book. And then the book became what I like to call a Major Roadblock— I cannot move on to another physical book without this one being finished. The ghost of it will haunt me because I bought it and stopped midway through something I had thought would be great. I suffered a tiny loophole of shame in my typical book-buying rule (Buy only what I have confidence in enjoying (and have heard of) and books I have read before) which has usually kept me in books that I enjoy much more and will go back to to reread.
This book was a case where I could not borrow it and it was only available on Amazon, which has some of the angriest DRM protocol I’ve seen, so I try not to buy books from there, period.* So seeing it in print? I had to get it.
*Later I went to his website and found it was also available on the Nook (not familiar with their DRM so I shy from it) and a website called Thalia, which is in German and considered a German alternative to Amazon when it comes to books, so I shied from that as well.
I held off for my next books for some time and today, since I am done with several projects and had a day to be a layabout. Originally I was planning on finishing a different book, but I had propped this one up to glare at me accusingly each time I went to sit and read in my reading spot, so I finally did it. I had a shade over 100 pages left and fuck me if I can’t just eat 100 pages for breakfast when I can focus. (Actually, I had just had an excellent breakfast at an amazing price, and it was a final shot at productivity before I went into a food coma)
When I had spoken to my friend about it, I had told him that I didn’t know if it would be worth it, but I had to read to find out if the first half was a fucking joke being played on me.
It was not a joke.
There are several points of view written into the book, pushed to the point where it would be more at home in the drama of a stage play or some kind of self-aware visual medium. It’s written to be funny, and perhaps it would be more enjoyed by a younger person, except that it’s called “Man, Fuck this House” and the line also appears in the book, so I have to wait until my friends kids are of age to know not to say dirty words to hand it off to them.
Point of View one. Sabrina Haskins, our tragic heroine, is obnoxious. Her caricature is of the unfulfilled housewife who goes underappreciated in her family. She’s a college dropout with a vaguely WASPish way about her, married to her husband when he picked her up as a Hooters waitress. She speaks and is dismissed, she fears her son since he consumed his twin in the womb, and when she is displaced, she’s terribly anxious and unhappy.
Point of View two. Damien Haskins. This little shit wants to be Artemis Fowl so bad. He has made it his life’s mission, at ten years old, to fuck with his mom (who he refers to by name until the last chapter) and to look down upon childhood like a smear on his shoe. He likes to use words he doesn’t actually understand, pretend to be demon spawn, and play Fortnite when no one is looking.
Point of View three. Michaela Haskins. She is an elder sister to Damien. This little twelve year old literally rolls her eyes and says whatever. She is the caricature of tweens, the sort I have only ever seen on television.
Point of View four. It doesn’t occur until the very end, when the twist is unveiled. It’s the fucking House.
I’ve read books where I wanted to choke the living daylights out of characters, but they’re written that way on purpose, to be at odds with the reader and cause dissonance and whatever other big word would make sense. These people are cartoons. I hate them. The final chapter racked up a body count because it very suddenly just popped off with the climax. I hated the climax.
I hated reading this. The best part was the very end, but it did not feel worth it to read. And then there was a moment where the author dropped in an extra scene and I also disliked it.
Again: the book was not my jam. I’m ignoring the writing style being ill-adapted to the print and just going with the strength of the story. The pacing was such that it would be so much more fun and enjoyable watching this, and there are very few times when I would prefer to watch a book than read it. The dramatic points are part of the horror comedy toolbox more readily adapted to viewership instead. I probably would have loved to watch this.
Instead, uuuuuuugh, I’m finally done.
