HOUSE OF SILENCE

This is a great book with very likable characters. While I was reading I wondered if it could be made into a movie. I believe it would make a good one. The description of the locale and personalities made me feel as if I was part of the story.

I enjoyed the story but the characters just didn't have the flesh to give them substance. I felt I was viewing the movie from a great novel, where there wasn't enough time to fill out the characters and their motivations.

I enjoyed the story but the characters just didn't have the flesh to give them substance. I felt I was viewing the movie from a great novel, where there wasn't enough time to fill out the characters and their motivations.

I enjoyed the several mysteries to try to figure out. They upgraded the book from a typical romance. The ending seemed quite rushed and the loose ends too easily tied in the end. It made for a nice vacation read.

Great story line. You would never know where story is going after reading the first chapter . All families have secrets, some more tangled than others, this certainly was. An ending that didn't leave you guessing.

The book is reasonably well-written and has an interesting structure, moving back and forth between first and third person narration. The big reveal is not really a surprise, but that's ok--I'm not one who believes that every plot twist has to be totally unforeseeable. As Henrik Ibsen said, there aren't that many plots out there, as any one who regularly reads the news (as he did) can tell you. And the characterization is a bit sketchy, but quite adequate.
The real problems that I can't get past are the implications of parallel structures such as "Aunt Sam did booze, Sasha did drugs, and my Uncle Frank did men - boys, if he could get them." Such implications are reinforced when the characters involved are characterized as an "unholy trinity." When discussing the "black sheep" in her family, the main character says they did "Drink. Drugs. Lots of sex." Again, the parallelisms are disturbing. It's also disturbing when the main character, describing her uncle, says "My uncle Frank was perpetually in love. Well, what he *called* love. I can't say it ever seemed to make him happy. But then he fell for some pretty unsavoury types. Male."

No plot development. No character development. Main characters are inherently unlikeable. The dialogue reads completely false. The point-of-view keeps changing from first to third person and back again, for no apparent reason. The story was predictable, and the ending drug on foreeeeeeeeever.