cantfindmybookmark's Reviews (505)

This book was different from anything I’ve read. It was gothic and atmospheric and beautiful. In this book, history is alive and the past and the present blur, connected by a house. This Tory is told through duel timelines. The first is 2014 in a boarding house in South Africa. The second is in the 1930s, in the same building before it became a boarding hosue, when it was a magnificent manor. In 2014 a young girl becomes obsessed with discovery the history of the house and we learn with her about the the love story that unfolded there and its tragic conclusion. There’s so much magic in this story. We get the POV of djinn who exists in both timelines, and even the house itself acts as a character, witnessing the lives unfolding within its walls. 

Racist, xenophobic, cruel, author is not actually native. 

This novella packs a punch. The prose and imagery are both heartbreakingly beautiful and deeply unsettling. It is a horror story that is also a meditation on grief, identity, and community. Its a love letter and apology to nature and the havoc that has been wreaked upon it. It's what Thoreau wishes Walden was.