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lyrasbookshelf 's review for:
The Haunting of Ashburn House
by Darcy Coates
dark
tense
You ever read a book and once everything is revealed, you feel like something just isn't adding up, even though you can't exactly put your finger on it? This is how The Haunting of Ashburn House left me feeling. The reveal raised so many questions, and while some of them were answered at some point, the explanations felt flimsy, which made the foundation of the book shaky.
The biggest things that I'm still wondering are:
1. Why was Eleanor an adult? She died as a child, so, logically, her undead body would be that of a child.
2. Why didn't Edith just leave? Eleanor started scrabbling out of her grave only when she went back to the house at 18, and after Edith's death, once Adrienne was at the house. So it seems a family member's presence in the house is the trigger. She didn't seem interested in other people. Otherwise she could've massacred anyone and gotten back her strength + more years. It had to be family.
3. I'm highly doubting that Edith would've left that important letter in the house and not to her lawyer/whoever handled her will. Her house was cleaned up after death (Who did it all? It would make sense if Adrienne had been contacted to take care of her funeral arrangements, but it was conveniently all done without her even knowing where Edith was buried) so there was high chance it could've been lost. She would not have risked it with that much at stake.
4. Edith said her memory was starting to fail her as she aged, hence the carved messages. And yet she remembered to get the paper every single day.
5. Edith said that Eleanor's powers were affected by what she believed. That means she could have made herself believe all kinds of things to make herself stronger.
6. Edith learned all those things about Eleanor, so one would assume that the four adults in the house had as well, so how could none of them overpower her, yet Edith - a child - could? And why were Eleanor's burnt-to-ashes remains conveniently left out of the story Adrienne was told at the café?
I could probably continue the list for a while. It wasn't horrible, it was kind of entertaining and I enjoyed reading it for most of the time, but the overall experience was underwhelming and the book is clearly full of holes.
The biggest things that I'm still wondering are:
2. Why didn't Edith just leave? Eleanor started scrabbling out of her grave only when she went back to the house at 18, and after Edith's death, once Adrienne was at the house. So it seems a family member's presence in the house is the trigger. She didn't seem interested in other people. Otherwise she could've massacred anyone and gotten back her strength + more years. It had to be family.
3. I'm highly doubting that Edith would've left that important letter in the house and not to her lawyer/whoever handled her will. Her house was cleaned up after death (Who did it all? It would make sense if Adrienne had been contacted to take care of her funeral arrangements, but it was conveniently all done without her even knowing where Edith was buried) so there was high chance it could've been lost. She would not have risked it with that much at stake.
4. Edith said her memory was starting to fail her as she aged, hence the carved messages. And yet she remembered to get the paper every single day.
5. Edith said that Eleanor's powers were affected by what she believed. That means she could have made herself believe all kinds of things to make herself stronger.
6. Edith learned all those things about Eleanor, so one would assume that the four adults in the house had as well, so how could none of them overpower her, yet Edith - a child - could? And why were Eleanor's burnt-to-ashes remains conveniently left out of the story Adrienne was told at the café?
I could probably continue the list for a while. It wasn't horrible, it was kind of entertaining and I enjoyed reading it for most of the time, but the overall experience was underwhelming and the book is clearly full of holes.