7.10.2014

THE HOUSE AT THE END OF HOPE STREET by Menna van Praag

Links for the East Side Reading Group


2 comments:

RM said...

This was a delightful book with a cunning title, accessible and yet subtly complex in the demands it makes of us to read between the lines and beyond the literal. Although set in a fantasy world, the experience of women in particular is undoubtedly grounded firmly in reality.

The content goes deep. On a simple level, just having perceptive people to talk to when hope is lost and we need this most. More though, it is a humbling reminder of the camaraderie and connection of women as they support each other in extreme vulnerability. The book also evokes the immense value of empathy, friendship and honest communication that has the power to bring about metamorphosis and another chance.

RC said...

Really didn't like this phony babyish book. To me it seemed like a Harry Potter Self-Help for Girls, with all the talking pictures on the wall. I didn't feel our female forebears were respected enough, or dispensed enough wisdom, especially from their own lives, to make them more than cheap parlour tricks.

I disliked the style, mostly description, long paragraphs and backstory for all the main characters, especially Alba Ashby, and her nasty family, occasionally broken by some stilted dialogue. Everyone's story was constructed so she could be "fixed," which would then be called "plot." It's a kind of feminist romance, coming-of-age, rites of passage novel, set in a magic psychic house haunted by chatty photos. Hopeless.