The book is great. But not for the reasons it’s intended to be.
First off I love the book. Well, some of it. I’ve never really been interested in The Backroom concept, but the NR absolutely got me invested. So much so that I paid $20 to rent Backrooms the movie. Amazing. I love the idea of a house changing based on the feelings and knowledge of the people. The staircase changing lengths because you know there’s an end, it’s amazing.
I love the lovecraft elements of it, I love the spookyness, I love the mental image the “internal” part of the house.
But man, after 250 pages I had to stop reading Johnny’s parts. they’re so boring. it is a complete pace killer. All he does is… bang whores and do drugs? Cool, what a unique character. I genuinely never found any interest in his parts and I read them for HALF THE BOOK so I gave it a shot.
Once I stopped reading JT parts, the pacing got way better, the story wasn’t constantly being interrupted, and I sprinted to finish the story because it was that much better.
I’d wish they made a movie about it, but Haunting of Hill House exists so I’m satisfied with that + Backrooms!
My fiancee is very mad I didn’t finish reading JT parts though, she loved them.