The Good House

By: Tananarive Due

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Tananarive Due, author of The Living Blood won the American Book Award and is praised as Stephen King's equal by Publishers Weekly. In The Good House, Due sets a story of ancient powers and modern retribution in a small Pacific Northwest town. When a young woman returns to her grandmother's empty mansion, she is pitted against demonic forces that have poisoned her family for generations.

©2003 Tananarive Due (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Due handles the potentially unwieldy elements of her novel with confidence, cross-cutting smoothly from past to present, introducing revelatory facts that alter the interpretation of earlier scenes and interjecting powerfully orchestrated moments of supernatural horror that sustain the tale's momentum....[Due is] a writer who grows better with each book." (Publishers Weekly)

mysterious

enjoyedthe listen, I love how the story had ancestry background of what happened in the GOODHOUSE that made it turn, and how the future decisions help get back it GREATNESS.

So boring

I can’t even finish it and I’m more than half way through. There were times I thought it would pick up but it never did. Ugh

Good narration and story!

My first audible book and I really like it! Full of surprises, twists and my emotions were mixed with each chapter.

Well Planned

I really enjoyed this book. Many reviews are complaining about it having too much detail but I disagree. It helps develop the characters and gives it more depth. very good listen but gets a bit spicy in places so be careful where you listen.

This is a great story!

Pros: The complexities of the story make it hard to put down and left me wanting more at the end.
Con: Some of Angela's decision and inner monologs were very...non-melanated.

Overall, I loved it and will listen to it again.

Good start, lazy ending

Great start, I was already researching what Tananarive Due book to try next before I was halfway through this one. Unfortunately, the ending was so bad I think I'm ready to move on. The book resolves not through the ingenuity, wit or even dumb luck of the protagonist; instead Ms. Due chooses the incredibly lazy route of just saying "Magic!" and all the conflict she had spent 500 odd pages building toward dies with nary a whimper. I think I'll try someone new for the next one.

Too Many Details...Too Much Back & Forth

What did you like best about The Good House? What did you like least?

I most liked the narrator. I liked the book's premise it just didn't come off too well.

I least liked the slowness in which the book moved. It dragged on for no good reason, giving details that added nothing to the story. I liked the mystery of the threat of a curse at the beginning of the book, but what I absolutely hated was, in this book (that gives every detail imaginable), fails to tell readers WHY the act of helping this person would result in a curse.

Would you be willing to try another book from Tananarive Due? Why or why not?

I don't know. This book started off good & strong even though it dragged on with too many details. But the ending had me fast forwarding. So not sure.

What does Robin Miles bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The accents of the locals. Fabulous narrative of Grandma Marie.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes. The movie would give a more overall rendition of the book which would make it less tedious & more enjoyable. The macabre scenes would fare better in a movie.

Emotional Rollercoaster

I usually don't write reviews, but I felt this was an exception. I have read other books by T. Due, so I wasn't disappointed in her writing skill. Some people complained that the book was too long and drawn out. But I didn't find that to be the case.
It was easy to identify with the heroine, and I felt her pain and her joy. The ending instead of a letdown, as some said, was more of a relief and a cleansing for me. The narrator was excellent, and it was well worth my time.

Consider that rating to be 3.33 stars!

I really don't want to be negative about this book because I essentially liked it. Excellent -- and unusual -- plot ideas. Good writing. Interesting characters (most of them, anyway). Absolutely first rate reading by Robin Miles, the female Scott Brick.

I've seen Tananarive Due compared to Steven King in other reviews here. It strikes me as a valid comparison, but not always in a positive way. Ms. Due's story-telling is, I think, actually better than the latter Steven King's. Unfortunately her use of words -- words -- words is most definitely comparable to Mr. King. As an example, the scene of Angie in the woods is needlessly repetitive and goes on way too long.

I try to avoid listening to abridged books. I would much rather have a novel written to the optimum (not necessarily shorter) length through the author's own editing process.

OK! Enough of my own words. Good book! About a third too long! Let's see. Five stars times 66.6 equals 3.33 stars. That's my rating.

Perfect for Stephen King fans

If you're a fan of Stephan King, I expect you'll love this book. It is based on a supernatural supposition, and it has character development similar to King's. But it's a fresh new voice very satisfying to those of us who may have become tired of King's worn out phrases and idiosyncrasies. The narration was excellent, handling the range from sage, femaile Creole African American, to surly teanagers and everything in between. If you're not comfortable with the length and detail of a King novel, this probably will not be for you.