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Title: FRIGHT HOUSE
Score:
Author: Lydia Roberson
Rating: Not available
Hits: 42

Review of FRIGHT HOUSE

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Comments for FRIGHT HOUSE

• Posted on 2008-10-15
  Really Cool Concept!
  
  The many short stories that LR delivers in Fright House will make you cringe. The stories are haunting, which is what makes this book so good. I believe anybody can make a frightening story, but I believe that LR brought an authenticity to these stories that not many people could pull off. I can't assume that these experiences were real but LR delivered them in a way that makes me second guess that assumption.
  
  As a person that can safely say that I've never had any type of negative paranormal experience...I hope it stays that way after reading this. For those that do have those fears and experiences, this book will tell you that you are not alone, and you have the ability to conquer them.
  
  LR did a great job with this book.
  
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• Posted on 2008-02-15
  A wonderful learning/thinking book!
  
  I really love this little book that's packed with thought provoking stories. Facing and handling fears is something we all have to do. Ms. Roberson give us a catalyst to start our thought process on how to deal with our fears.
  
  This book is perfect to read with pre-teens and teenagers. It should be a "must read" for all parents.
  
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• Posted on 2008-02-15
  Horror stories that aim to do more than entertain
  
  A great deal of the horror being written and published today fails to distinguish itself from the crowd, and that only contributes to the undeserved stigma that has long been attached to works of this genre - the idea that horror is somehow less worthy a literary pursuit than all others. Lydia Roberson's Fright House, however, carves out quite a nice, possibly unique, niche for itself as what could be called self-help horror fiction. At first glance, the stories included in this collection appear to be nothing more than assorted tales of largely psychological horror, but Lydia Roberson is not here simply to entertain or possibly scare you a little. The overarching concept behind the book is the author's attempt to help others overcome their own fears. Using the concept of the haunted house as a metaphor, she invites her readers to draw upon the positives and learn from the negatives of her characters' trials and travails, thus empowering themselves to become the true arbiters of their own fates and the sole handlers of the keys to their own psyches.
  
  There are some nice story ideas in play here, some of them reportedly inspired by actual events in the author's life. Take, for example, the story of a woman who is truly uncomfortable in her own skin, the tale of a new homeowner who finds herself harassed for an overdue payment that has nothing to do with her bank loan, or the Dorian Gray-like gentleman whose dreams of death compel him to seek out the perfect woman to be his death mate. My favorite, though, would have to be a more conventional ghost story called "Felix." Interspersed here and there, you will also find several poems. There's really something for just about everyone in Fright House.
  
  The common link in all of the stories is the presence of a house - sometimes a foreboding presence, sometimes a sort of conduit of one character's emotions, and at times a living entity capable of wearing down and eventually overtaking the very body and soul of a discomfited lodger. In The Evil Walls, the story revolves around a veritable contest of will between house and homeowner, while a number of characters spread across these pages must face different variations of a "something in the walls" (or floors or ceilings) theme. The central question, one reflected in story after story, is an inquiry into the true origins of evil and fear. Once you discover the source of any fear in your own life, you put yourself in a position to overcome it. That is the illuminating message that Roberson seems to call up from quite a miasma of dark tales.
  
  In a section Roberson calls Fright House Morals, she offers a quick evaluation of each of her stories and - more importantly - the actions and inactions that led her characters to either fail or succeed in the face of overpowering their fear. This is where she hammers home her point that each of us has the ability to see our fears for what they really are and, by then facing up to them, get to work overcoming even the most crippling of the bunch. She tops it off with a small assignment designed to help the reader face up to any given fear in his/her own life.
  
  Fright House is a relatively short book - too short, in my opinion. Roberson tends to take a pretty direct route from beginning to end of her stories. Sometimes that worked out well, but more often than not I found myself wishing that she had developed her settings and characters more fully. I believe that would have significantly furthered her attempts to make the reader feel as if he/she is a real part of each story.
  
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• Posted on 2008-02-05
  Horror Heaven
  
  I was in horror heaven when I read "Fright House"!
  All the stories took my breath away! I could not get enough of Ms. Roberson's creativity!
  I highly recommend "Fright House" to all those who seek a horror adventure and for those who want to dismiss and heal all the fears they have in their lives.
  
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• Posted on 2007-12-07
  Truly Creepy
  
  A collection of shorts linked together through the omnipresence of a house.
  
  The house itself isn't paranormal, the evil of the house is brought in to it by the people. The insanity of people trapped within their own internal twisted self fulfilling nightmares.
  
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