Fionnuala's Reviews > Thirteen Storeys

Where to start with this one. On the one hand, there was a lot here to like and a lot of concepts and imagery that was impressively pulled off; on the other hand, there are some issues that I can't overlook. Overall it was an enjoyable story, definitely holding my interest and something that I found easy to read and, had I more time, I would have probably finished in a day. It's certainly worth the read for some of the chapters alone, but as a full, cohesive project? It doesn't quite come together.

First of all, a very minor gripe that I cannot ignore: this book could have benefited from a final run past the editor. There are numerous typos in this book, to the point where it's a little distracting. Missing punctuation is a problem, and at one point Banyan Court itself is misspelled as Bayan Court. There is also two occurrences where Leon's wife Andrea is called Angela in the text, and it's quite clear that this is a mistake -- either a mistype, or a name-change that occurred at some point in the writing process. There are also a few instances of very bad writing, most notably a single four-or five line paragraph that uses the word "before" four times, twice in the same sentence. Yes, it's minor, but it's not very encouraging to see something like this. It makes me wonder how much care went into the editing process, and typos are utterly mortifying. I have no idea how they make it into published books to this magnitude.

Anyway, onto the bulk of the matter. The story is told via a series of loosely interconnecting stories from the residents of Banyan Court, plus a few extras who also have some link to the building. The individual stories, overall, are brilliant. They can all stand up on their own as short horror stories, and despite the large cast, each one of them is totally different to the last. There's no point where it feels like a rehash of someone else's story; each aspect is wholly unique and unnerving in its own way. I had my favourites, of course, but there were none that I disliked or found boring compared to the others. There was some extremely unnerving imagery, and the atmosphere was very effective -- a sort of unreal quality to it, where everything seemed slightly to the left. For the most part I was able to wholly accept everything, though there were a few instances where I felt it was a little too much out of nowhere (Caroline's chapter, for example). The pacing also varies widely, not just from chapter to chapter but also within the chapters, and sometimes it felt too rushed to really connect with the horror or to fully believe that a character had come to that conclusion/accepted what was occurring so quickly. The story was intriguing enough to forgive this occasional intrusion, though.

This book certainly has its chosen topic, and the metaphors are not subtle. What the haunting represents is very clear by the end of the first chapter, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. I was actually quite excited to see that my guess was correct, and the exploration of all the different aspects of it was very fun to read, with some unique takes on it. Sometimes it does kind of feel a little like being bashed over the head with Meaning, but not in the way that annoys me. Some authors have a nasty habit of doing this because it's quite clear that they believe their reader is too stupid to follow along with it, but with this, I think it was actually more of a distraction. The whole thing is two-fold, with what the haunting represents and then its reason for occurring. I think the sometimes heavy-handedness with the former allows the latter to go undetected, and it certainly worked with me. I actually found the reasoning behind the whole thing very interesting, which is a relief, because often when ghost stories try to explain their ghosts the whole thing falls flat. In this case that didn't happen, but unfortunately the ending fell flat for other reasons.

(view spoiler)[In a story such as this, you know that the final chapter is going to bring everyone together. Sure enough, in this chapter all of the previous characters are brought to the dinner party, and Tobias himself -- the rich billionaire who invited them all -- finally makes an appearance. The end chapter runs at around 70 pages and has thirteen narrative points of view. It's ambitious, and I can commend that, but it did not work. The pacing is off, the paragraphs are choppy, with some characters having only a single paragraph of around three or four sentences before it swaps to another character, and the whole thing is just a little too over the top. The meaning of the whole thing -- that the hauntings are all a different aspect of the atrocities Tobias has committed in order to make his fortune -- is blatantly spelled out by each character, and the murder of Tobias is almost comically grotesque. I cannot think for a moment why anyone would decide to try and give equal weight to thirteen different characters in the same chapter, but it was too much and it didn't work. I did find the fact that Banyan Court had been constructed specifically to attract and contain these hauntings to be interesting, but it was still, for me, a little lazy to have Tobias stand up at dinner and announce it all in a villain monologue. The cannibalism aspect wasn't shocking for me, because I don't find consensual cannibalism (when a living victim consents to somebody eating part of their body which has already been amputated medically, such as in this case) to be unnerving at all; however there was a decent aspect of moral dilemma when it came to Diego, and I was happy to see that all of the characters managed to have different and believable concerns and decisions regarding that. The actual murder itself, as I mentioned before, was choppy and far too much; the constant perspective swapping just didn't work out, and I'm left wondering why the author didn't choose literally any other perspective to narrate the end. Tobias' perspective would have worked and been suitably horrific, as well as adding weight to the man who was behind it all from the start. David's perspective could have been interesting. Hell, in a story like this -- where so much is already possible and believable -- the final chapter could have been told by Banyan Court itself, with all of its ghosts already confirmed sentient and invested in the proceedings. It would have been no more ambitious that what was attempted in the book, and I think it would have worked better. Thirteen characters is just far too much for the narrative to juggle, and as a result the ending really didn't hold up to everything that came before it. It's a shame. (hide spoiler)]

To summarise for those wishing to avoid spoilers, the ending unfortunately did not live up to the rest of the book, being too choppy and a little too full of exposition. The ending was what made this a three- rather than a four-star review for me, but despite this it wasn't necessarily bad. It was just not the right ending, I don't think. Even so, the journey towards it is well worth the read, because there was plenty about this book that was interesting, unnerving, and very enjoyable. Definitely worth a read, so long as you keep in mind that it's more about the journey than the destination.