Maura (maura853) - , reviewed on 5/6/2017 + 542 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Assigning stars to Shirley Jackson's classic dark Gothic novel feels like a hopelessly presumptuous exercise. We don't have star ratings for hurricanes, volcanoes or earthquakes and, like those forces of nature, "We Have Always Lived ..." doesn't need our feedback. It just "is" -- and doesn't care who gets hurt in the process.

Before she succumbed to her own demons, at the age of only 49, Shirley Jackson created a Most Perfect Thing: the twisted love-child of "House of the Seven Gables" and "Cold Comfort Farm" (if the majority of the Starkadders had been buried in shallow graves behind the woodshed). "We Have Always Lived ..." is a dazzling little gem of unreliable narration, dark psychology (both individual and herd), and terrifying, vivid imagery. It is also very, very funny.

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