What Happened After Chapter 16?

The first 1/3 of this book is a masterclass in how to tell a horror story. Sure, it's a little hypersexualized, but Bentley Little develops a creepy atmosphere using genuinely chilling imagery, effective vivid description, and relatable characters that are easy to empathize with (Little writes the most realistic children I have read in a long time). Readers can easily put themselves in the story and feel the terror.
The author builds the tale using a most-interesting storytelling structure. The book is written in Third Person Omniscient - each chapter relating a frightening episode told from the perspective of a different character [Ex: Mom (Lawyer Claire) in the shower; Dad (Web Designer Julian) in his home office; Son (James - 10) in the backyard; Daughter (Megan - 14) playing Ouija with friends during a sleepover]. It works marvellously.
Unfortunately, Bentley veers into the bizarre, overly-involved, and questionably-relevant for the middle third of the novel, and then descends into the sappy and ludicrous for the final third. Additionally, he starts to rely on gore and explicit sex to maintain interest when the tale starts to fall apart - Little probably should have shelved this book, started another, and came back to finish it later.

The reading from Dan Butler is expressive and professional. His tone is appropriately sombre and he conveys fear very nicely. Despite delivering passable dialogue, however, his voice-acting is decidedly average (child and female voices are realistic, but sound similar). He furthermore reads at a too-slow pace - this book is best consumed at 1.15X - but Blackstone Audio did well to assign Butler to the project (and the sound engineers do a fantastic job adjusting the volume of whispery segments).

Despite being a Free offering with the Audible 'Plus' initiative, this book is worthy of 7.5 stars out of 10. 'The Haunted' is definitely disappointing (it could have been a peerless modern haunted house story).. but downloading this audiobook with decent writing, capable performance, and impressive quality standards is reasonable for listeners looking for a scare.

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3 people found this helpful

Nice Family Drama with Horror Elements

The story was pretty good. Not a whole lot struck me as new or groundbreaking, but it is a decent haunted house / family type story.
I feel it didn't have to be as long as it was. it could have been a 6-hour book with the same story. That said, I did enjoy the journey and was never bored. I would recommend this, but above this I would recommend the author's collection of short stories. I will give his other books a chance. 3.5 out of 5 is my total score.

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Great read!

When I first started the book I couldn’t stop listening. I listened for 5 hours straight. I ended up finishing the book in a few days. It was great and kept me on the edge of my seat!

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Will read more

I had never read anything from this author i but will explore other books as a result of this one. Interesting elements and writing style without being to over the top. Good read.

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Creepy

I really enjoyed this book and will be searching for more books from this author.
I found myself getting quite absorbed in the story. So much so that it made me jumpy because it creeped me out. Definitely what you want in a good ghost story.

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It was ok

Some parts were interesting, a lot of it was hard to get through. Somehow I needed up finishing it.

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Bentley Little really knows how to create fright

The mounting dread was amazing. The narrator did a great job with it. Bentley Little is incredible with the POVs of everyone in this.
The mounting tension was unreal and awesome.

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I couldn't get through it

I do feel the plot had promise but I couldn't get past around Chapter 7. I feel like the author was projecting their own, outdated mentality a bit self-righteously and without tact. This would be no problem to me if it added to the plot, message, or character's development somehow but it never seemed to up.

First it was when the father character implied that his son was turning out well but his daughter wasn't because she was listening to her iPod during their car ride and the son was looking out the window. Then the father said he had trouble shaking the hands of women. And I initially thought okay this is part of his character and plays into the story, but then the mother character was griping about text lingo and how youngins are calling periods 'dots' and not using proper grammar and spelling and I just couldn't anymore.. 😂

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Interesting Evil Entity

Performed very well however, plot holes, inconsistent character motivations, and some real slow sections made this an okay story for me! I did the like evil entity that haunts the house and the ending was satisfying just making it there was a bit of a struggle.

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Okay read.

Not my usual but it was okay. Could have been more. Especially within character.

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