AJ Dunn Reads

  Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Noemí Taboada visits her cousin Catalina at High Place, an old Victorian mansion high in the misty hills of the Mexican countryside. Her father has received a distressing letter from Catalina with cryptic messages and he thinks she may need psychiatric care. he sends Noemí, a society girl used to dating pretty boys and bantering with those in her circle, to visit Catalina and assess the situation. Catalina moved to High Place after marrying a handsome, cold heir to a silver mine named Virgil who lives at High Place with his elderly father Howard Doyle, his aloof and proper aunt Florence, and his quiet and slight cousin Francis, along with three servants. When Noemí arrives she immediately feels unwelcome and learns this family has a thing with pure heredity, as in pure white English heredity, particularly that of their own family. All is not what it seems. The house is in decay and seems to have a mold problem. Catalins, kept in her room mos...

  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson I'm not exactly sure what this book is trying to say, but I enjoyed reading it.  The story follows Eleanor Vance as she spends a few days in the summer at Hill House, a large and oddly constructed house in the middle of nowhere. Invited by a philosophy doctor and student of the occult, Dr. Montague, Eleanor and two others meet at Hill House unaware of why they are there. Eleanor had a strange occurence happen to her family when she was young, Theodore appears to have some sort of psychic ability, and Luke is the presumptive heir to Hill House. They all meet and become fast friends. Their dialogue is youthful, silly, and fun, sometimes confusing, but obviously friendly. They become close quickly, particularly Eleanor and Theo. Soon the house begins to elicit strange occurrences: knocking on doors, a ghost dog, and blood smeared on Theo's clothes; Eleanor's name along with a message calling her home written on the walls and a co...