Question... has anyone here ever read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson? Rec it?
It's great. Very atmospheric and subtly creepy.
Yes, I prefer the story of Hill House but the characters of Castle.
I love the story of
Hill House,
but I can't reread it very often, because it freaks me out every damn time.
Yeah, Hill House is the one that concerns me. Because, you know, my house might be insane. I'm not so worried about the events of Castle.
I just taught the heartbreaking Bradbury short story "All Summer in a Day" to my 6th graders. Inspired such great conversations!
I love using that story. I refer to it as "Children Are Bastards"
I love that short story.
Oh man, I just finished the book
Wonder
by R.J. Palacio. I started at the gym and kept reading it after the kids went to bed. What a great book. Made me cry because it's sort of a Gracie-kinda-story. Except the kids at Grace's school love her.
I refer to it as "Children Are Bastards"
Bwah! Love that. So true.
Question... has anyone here ever read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson? Rec it?
What everyone else said. I loved it and Hill House tons.
I also recommend The Sundial by Jackson if you can find it (I think it's long out of print). Really strange, odd book.
Hill House consistently gives me the wiggins, and I've read it probably 20 times. It's pitch-perfect.
It has one of the best first paragraphs ever:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
YES YES YES. It is perfect, and I love that opening para.
LOVE.
(I'd love to do a Halloween week read-along of it; wish peeps lived closer...Skype and cocktails, mebbe?)