An Interesting Story Idea, A Lousy Book

Essentially, House is a good idea and a bad book.

The concept could have birthed a great book: A diabolic serial killer traps four people in his house and threatens to kill them all unless they give him one dead body.

But, the book falls far short.The plot takes several bad turns until it finally veers off into the fully ridiculous and unoriginal.

The main characters are uninteresting and predictable. The only really interesting characters are the family of inbred freaks, but they turn out to be demons.

The story didn't need to be as supernatural. The characters' spiritual sin nature could have been exposed more effectively in a physical, "natural" setting:in a regular house with a human villain. Flannery O'Connor has taught us that lesson well.

This is a quick and incomplete analysis, but it points out a few key disappointments I had with the book.

4 people found this helpful

A terrible abridgement...

This is my first abridged audiobook, and it will also be my last. The abridgement seemed okay at first, seeming to play out like an underdeveloped horror movie. After an hour, nothing made sense anymore, and I gave up. I would be willing to give an unabridged version a shot, but the narrator (one of the authors) is terrible, breaking into falsetto for one of the female characters. This makes any situation that might be even slightly tense, well, laughable and distracting. The book itself may be fine, but I cannot recommend this recording.

3 people found this helpful

Good Story, ANNOYING VOICES!!!

I love Ted Dekker books, and I was hoping I would love this one too. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case with this book. The biggest issue was the voice narration! Especially for the women in the story! It got so bad at times that I would have to stop listening to it because I would get a headache! I like Rob Lamont's voice. I think this book needs to be redone with him as the narrator reading the unabridged version. Sorry Frank, but have you even listened to what your voices are like for this book?

Another thing that was bothersome was that the story could get kinda/really confusing at times...and it doesn't help when the voices are annoying! Sometimes I would have to rewind parts of the story just to try to figure out what was going on!

I think this story would be great if it was unabridged and narrated with great voices.

2 people found this helpful

Hard To Understand

Though the story is interesting at times, but the reader can be hard to understand. He reads quite quickly through the action sections of the book, and I had to rewind several sections to get the gist. Listen to a sample. You be the judge.

2 people found this helpful

Very confusing

I have met Frank Peretti and he is a wonderful man and an awesome author. I love all of his books...except this one. It is confusing and I got lost fairly quickly. Nothing personal Frank, but I didn't care for YOUR narration of the book...the voice of the female voice was irritating and sounded like "a man trying to talk like a woman" which is not believable. A good person to use for multiple voices would be Jack Sondricker who reads the Left Behind Series.
It probably didn't help that this was an abridged version. MAYBE I'll try the unabridged version at a later time. I think I'll "read" the next book before I "listen" to it. I hope the next plot will be better than this one. Sorry!!

6 people found this helpful

love all of this authors books

the book is very thought provoking and keeps you on the edge of your seat

1 person found this helpful

Horrible narrator! Awesome book

The book was awesome though. scary and kept you wanting more from the first page!!!! i would recommend it

1 person found this helpful

Just OK

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

This book could have been better by actually having more of an interesting story line to it. People trapped in a haunted house with a serial killer. There is constant action as the people trapped try to stay alive. Too much action, nothing seemed too frightening after the book progressed a bit. The story itself became boring.
With the non-stop action, I thought to myself that this story is more attuned to a screen play. Sure enough, when I checked, I found out it has been adapted to to film.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

What does Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrators were good. They are also the authors of the book.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No

Any additional comments?

A horror fan may like this story, just not "my cup of tea."

1 person found this helpful

Engaging Listen

I prefer to hear an author read his/her book, and House is a prime example of taking a work to the next level. Frank Peretti brings the characters to life with true vocal animation that takes the guesswork out of imagining the characters??? subtleties.

1 person found this helpful

I liked both the story and the reading.

The rendition of this audio book is unique but I enjoyed it very much. The author reads the book as a storyteller would instead of just flatly reading the words. Once you get used to the different voices he uses for the characters it is easy to tell who is saying what and allows you to get lost in the story without all the "he said, she said" explainations to the dialog.

1 person found this helpful