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Henk's Reviews > Wild Houses
Wild Houses
by
by
Longlisted for the Booker prize 2024, one of the books that read easily but of which I am unsure what the overall message and purpose is
A textured take on small town Irish life and the problems drugs can bring people in. The writing kept me engaged, but I found the narrative less impactful than expected and missed some kind of deeper payoff to the book
It was difficult and eventually unbearable to be around someone who you can’t help
I find it hard to articulate why exactly Wild Houses felt somewhat lacklustre to me. For me the reading experience definitely doesn't life up to the description the publisher choose for this book: Wild Houses is thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence.
The stakes are there, a drug trade has gone sour and ends up in a kidnapping, but not much else of the blurb is really delivered. Loved ones are upset, some people get slightly hurt, plans are hatched which seem to come directly out of crime movies, yet the conclusion is less horrid than one might expect, no cut-off body parts here. There is some bullying (Victimhood was contagious, they did not want to catch it), dealing with trauma, therapy and also misogny while working in the hospitality industry, but these themes are not taken on in depth in terms of execution.
Somehow I think this would work as a movie better, maybe Tarantino, with some more violence or otherwise a highly stylised rendition by Wes Anderson and with maybe a bit more humour and things going wrong along the way. As a book I must say that the writing of Colin Barrett is fine and keeps you engaged (but is not really elevated compared to other nominees of this year like Orbital or Held), but the overall plot just wasn't original or surprising enough for me.
I did appreciate one of the sickest burns of the appearance of one of the characters, which I do want to highlight: Gabe by contrast was skin and bone. He was touching 40, but looked ten years older again, with a face on him like a vandalised church, long and angular and pitted, eyes glinting deep in his sockets like smashed out windows.
Overall the book steered dangerously close to this description one of the characters uses, and I round my 2.5 stars up only because of the read being quite enjoyable and easy in terms of experience: They were useless but benign
A textured take on small town Irish life and the problems drugs can bring people in. The writing kept me engaged, but I found the narrative less impactful than expected and missed some kind of deeper payoff to the book
It was difficult and eventually unbearable to be around someone who you can’t help
I find it hard to articulate why exactly Wild Houses felt somewhat lacklustre to me. For me the reading experience definitely doesn't life up to the description the publisher choose for this book: Wild Houses is thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence.
The stakes are there, a drug trade has gone sour and ends up in a kidnapping, but not much else of the blurb is really delivered. Loved ones are upset, some people get slightly hurt, plans are hatched which seem to come directly out of crime movies, yet the conclusion is less horrid than one might expect, no cut-off body parts here. There is some bullying (Victimhood was contagious, they did not want to catch it), dealing with trauma, therapy and also misogny while working in the hospitality industry, but these themes are not taken on in depth in terms of execution.
Somehow I think this would work as a movie better, maybe Tarantino, with some more violence or otherwise a highly stylised rendition by Wes Anderson and with maybe a bit more humour and things going wrong along the way. As a book I must say that the writing of Colin Barrett is fine and keeps you engaged (but is not really elevated compared to other nominees of this year like Orbital or Held), but the overall plot just wasn't original or surprising enough for me.
I did appreciate one of the sickest burns of the appearance of one of the characters, which I do want to highlight: Gabe by contrast was skin and bone. He was touching 40, but looked ten years older again, with a face on him like a vandalised church, long and angular and pitted, eyes glinting deep in his sockets like smashed out windows.
Overall the book steered dangerously close to this description one of the characters uses, and I round my 2.5 stars up only because of the read being quite enjoyable and easy in terms of experience: They were useless but benign
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Reading Progress
July 25, 2024
– Shelved
July 25, 2024
– Shelved as:
to-read
August 14, 2024
–
Started Reading
August 14, 2024
–
Finished Reading
