Bring the House Down

A Novel

De: Charlotte Runcie

Narrado por: Isabelle Farah

ONE OF GLAMOUR'S BEST BOOKS FOR BOOK CLUBS • A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox.

“Excellent…brilliant…a fiery reminder that we still have so far to go when it comes to men behaving poorly and getting away with it.”—LitHub

"A binge-worthy novel that explores our obsessions, our inner critic, and who we think we are in person and in print. Intimate, real, and really funny. This one has teeth.”—Kiley Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Come and Get It and Such a Fun Age

Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.

Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story.

A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.

©2025 Charlotte Runcie (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A turbulent and harrowing ride on what it really means to criticize a culture. . .The difficult genius of Bring the House Down is how hard it hammers the idea of there really being two sides to every story. . .Runcie writes with a voice that can only be achieved through the bird’s eye view of an objective, observant journalist. . .[A] formidable debut novel.”—Chicago Review of Books

"So delightfully snackable that you may, as I did, gulp it down in two or three sittings. . .This deeply entertaining novel [is] well worth the price of admission.”—Los Angeles Times

“Accomplished. . . A smart, sharp and compulsively readable first novel that provides food for thought on a variety of complex topics. . . Runcie strikes a perfect balance, and instead of tub-thumping or finger-pointing, explores each issue with nuance and evenhandedness. Serious and thought-provoking [but] also fun and frequently witty. . . [Bring the House Down is] a five-star triumph.”—Washington Post

Excellent narration

The narrator does a great job with voices, dialogue, and dramatic interactions. Some passages of description and narrator's memories drag a bit, and I sometimes lost focus.
I wish the reader had found a way to distinguish tweets and social media posts from the surrounding narrative. Those were confusing to process "by ear".
Also, the reader didn't pause at section breaks, so it wasn't always easy to tell when the setting had changed or some time had passed.