Mystery! Fire! Dresden Figurines!

I have read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, one of the two I chose for the RIP Challenge!

First off, PENGUIN YOU WIN AT COVERS. I cannot tell you how many people who normally don't fricking care one jot as to what I'm reading have asked about this book. The cover kicks ass. It, in my opinion, still doesn't justify the $15 Penguin is apparently charging for it (I got it from the library), but still. Awesome.

I haven't read The Lottery, because my high school had a substandard English dept, but I read Haunting of Hill House last year because I was told it has some ladies-liking-ladies stuff, and I'm always up for reading that, especially if written in the '50s (verboten! fun between-the-linesness!). I was disappointed in it, not only because the ladies stuff was perplexing to me, but it just felt SO VERY VAGUE. In general. Like, a fog of vagueness surrounded the entire thing, and I am only okay with that happening in Henry James' stuff, because I EXPECT IT of him.

This was not vague. This withheld facts, but eventually elucidated them in an 'oh, by the way' fashion, which I can get behind. You start out completely in the dark (and with an unreliable but interesting narrator), and as things happen, you piece together how everyone ended up where they are.

Oh, and Cousin Charles? HATE. He was causing me intense frustration and anger in the break room at my workplace, which is not conducive to a healthy work environment. So fie on you, Charles.

I don't think I can ever give a Jackson book more than 3/5, but not because I think she's bad. She just doesn't fit me. Kind of like how Hemingway pisses me off, but I get that he's not terrible. So I thought this was most excellent indeed, and might read it again someday, but it didn't Resound Within My Innermost Parts like, y'know, Calvin & Hobbes does. But thank you, O Ye Billion Who Suggested It. You have done well.