Which is very unfortunate because the 'horror' of the book revolves around the idea of the 'curse' of the house and the guilt of the mother.

You have to assume these things because it's never really drawn in the narrative.

All in the first few pages we learn the sister's father bought an expensive house he probably loved more than his own family and then died and that their mother, already probably very distant, drew further away until she was out of their lives entirely. So, ew.Īlso, I feel the themes of the book were introduced too rapidly and never really developed properly. good riddance, ya dumbass book!Īt the end of the day, no matter how well it is or is not written, (and it is very readable) it's still about a ten year old boy who ages very rapidly and sleeps with his Aunt. I just couldn't tolerate it, so I gave up. it's embarrassing when an author shows ignorance like that. but the straw that broke this reader's back: the offhand cruelty of the characters towards the black housekeeper who raised the sisters and, much worse (because I can deal with racist characters), the feeling that Randall wrote this laughable Mammy caricature without a second thought about how completely awful he was being. I can definitely tolerate 'so bad it's good'. well let's be generous and say that the surprising amateurishness made me smile. the writing: Bob Randall had some success back in the day with his thriller The Fan, but I wonder how, since the characterization here is a glib joke, the internal monologues of the two sisters (in alternating chapters) sound exactly the same except one curses more, and the lack of writing chops overall is. that's super creepy! but I can definitely tolerate 'super creepy'.

the premise: a 10-year-old boy begins displaying the mannerisms of his dead uncle, starts romancing his widowed and delusional aunt, and soon enough, inexplicably ages into an adult (at least physically). It's funny to consider the different things we can and cannot tolerate as a reader.

The Fan by Bob Randall