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Content snapshot
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Violence
Barely any
Historical family murder; some mob violence toward the house
Language
None
No profanity
Sexual Content
None
No sexual content
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
A lot
A deeply unsettling narrator whose perspective on the murders becomes clearer and more disturbing as the novel progresses; gothic dread and claustrophobia throughout
What this book is about
Merricat Blackwood, eighteen, lives with her beloved sister Constance and their Uncle Julian in the family's decaying mansion on a hill, shunned by the village below. Six years ago, most of the family died of arsenic poisoning at the dinner table; Constance was tried for murder and acquitted. Merricat narrates with a voice that is part fairy tale, part menace, burying charms to protect the house and dreaming of life on the moon. Jackson's final novel is a gothic masterpiece of unreliable narration and slow, creeping dread.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Deeply unsettling unreliable narrator
A family poisoning as backstory
Gothic psychological atmosphere throughout
Reader Verification
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