Book Review: The World House by Guy Adams

Pros: fascinating and diverse characters, interesting setting, lots of twists, complex plot revealed at the end

Cons: fair amount of swearing, some uncomfortable scenes (but nothing graphic), minor plot holes

The World House is the story of various people who find themselves holding a mysterious box with Chinese letters on it during moments of personal danger.  Transported to an alternate reality, the World House, these people meet and band together to survive the horrors that the house, and other displaced humans, throw at them.

It's the variety of characters and the insane house that make this a great read.  From Miles, an antiques dealer, whose gambling debts mean he's close to having his legs broken as repayment, to Tom the piano player, who loves Thursdays because he gets to see the woman he fancies, to Sophie, an autistic girl, who sees the world differently and Alan, who doesn't remember his youth outside of disturbing dreams and wants to be a good man.  The setting is much like that of Alice in Wonderland, constantly changing and throwing new dangers at the characters.  The house has infinitely long hallways, an oceanic bathtub and monsters that come to life at nighttime, all of which keep the narrative exciting.

The ending pulls all the otherwise disjointed stories together in a way that's impossible to predict as the entity the house guards manipulates the current situation to its benefit.

There is some swearing and a few scenes were uncomfortable to read, though there was nothing particularly graphic.  One character is portrayed as a bad man via the cliched use of an attempted rape.  His casual cruelty was better demonstrated by his actions at the end of the book but the scene did show the feistiness and survival instincts of one of the female characters (meanwhile another woman is raped in the background so be advised).  The ending also implies that one of the characters must meet with certain people,  whom he never meets in the book and never hears about, so it's unclear how he's supposed to do this, though that is explained in the sequel.

In the end, this is quite different from other books out there.  Imaginative and fun, it will keep you on your toes.