Review: Pulls its punches and steps too heavily.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 18, 2011
I like Riverhouse to a certain degree, but I feel like it doesn't really like me back. Everytime I keep getting into it, even just a little bit, it boots me right back out.The problem is that there is no statement the narrative is willing to make that it isn't willing to immediately reiterate in great detail for anywhere from three to five paragraphs. The book won't just tell you, for example, that Shane doesn't believe in the notion of an artistic muse because he feels they're flighty and unreliable... the book has to spend five lengthy paragraphs explaining that with marginally different variations of "muses are unrealistic and unpredictable", and the phrase "Shane had learned to dip from the well of his own creativity and draw what he needed whenever he needed it," multiple times in a chapter. And then right before the chapter ends, it happens again, with another three paragraphs devoted to saying the exact same thing. It's frustrating and jarring and bogs down what would have been an excellent character driven ghost story.Lippert has a knack for knowing what makes an interesting story, but unfortunately he hasn't mastered the art of "show, don't tell", and not only in regards for describing scenery in painstaking detail. It ruins the creepy ambiguity of what are intended to be frightening scenes by immediately having Shane ruminate on what happened for a page and a half in excruciating detail. The scenes themselves where Shane has supernatural-esque encounters are actually very well done, but more often than that they're ruined and become boring because it feels like Shane's giving a school report on it, or speaking with a particularly disinterested psychiatrist. "I zee. Und how doze zis make you feel?"Lippert actually has a keen eye for fear and knows how to write a frightening scene, but I wish he'd let those scenes speak for themselves more often instead of having his protagonist drill us on them in every little aspect until they lose all bite. Shane himself is another issue; the "tell, don't show" narrative lets him down because he never gets a chance to display through his actions or interactions how he feels. Instead, we get "Shane was sad because blah blah blah which was depressing because blah blah blah and that is upsetting because blah blah blah but now he feels that OH MY GOD BE QUIET ALREADY."With a paring knife taken to the narrative and less of a tendency to infodump large quantities of exposition at the drop of a hat, the story would have moved a lot quicker and been better for it. As it is, Riverhouse is a solid ghost story with a lot of unnecessary meat and gristle wrapped around to pad it to the point of becoming unwieldy.