The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Author: John Bellairs
Pages: 179
First Published: June 1973
Genre: Children, Fantasy
Book Description (from Good Reads): Orphaned Lewis Barnavelt comes to live with his Uncle Jonathan and quickly learns that both his uncle and his next-door neighbor are witches on a quest to discover the terrifying clock ticking within the walls of Jonathan's house. Can the three of them save the world from certain destruction?
Thoughts:
A nice easy, quick read. It is a children's book so the writing style is simple and pretty straightforward. It was enjoyable but nothing that blew my mind away.
I might try to find the rest of the books, maybe it will get better or if not, at least they make an enjoyable quick read.
The magic is something I did not really understand there was a lot of it that could have been explained a bit more but I mean it was ok in a certain way, because in the end there is really no logic to how it works, the magic is based on intention or wish I assume because they manage to use nonsense to get a ritual... It really did not make sense, which was the point of it, to begin with.... But still, it made the story go off rail because the very little explained magic just throws itself down a cliff. So, in other words, the lack of explanations for the magic system dampers my enjoyment a bit because it feels like it was a bit too convenient for it to actually work out the way it did, but if you ignore that the rest of the story is very enjoyable.
Pages: 179
First Published: June 1973
Genre: Children, Fantasy
Book Description (from Good Reads): Orphaned Lewis Barnavelt comes to live with his Uncle Jonathan and quickly learns that both his uncle and his next-door neighbor are witches on a quest to discover the terrifying clock ticking within the walls of Jonathan's house. Can the three of them save the world from certain destruction?
Thoughts:
A nice easy, quick read. It is a children's book so the writing style is simple and pretty straightforward. It was enjoyable but nothing that blew my mind away.
I might try to find the rest of the books, maybe it will get better or if not, at least they make an enjoyable quick read.
There is the typical child who gets thrown into a world of magic and mystery, he wants to have friends, but it is actually bullied and ignored in school so he makes several bad choices trying to keep the only kid who "was his friend", though I would not call him a friend, the kid treats him badly for most of the book, ignoring him and calling him names in front of the other kids. Oh well, he does need to get over things it is part of growing up. Lewis has normal children's issues to deal with and then he has the witches issues.
One of the things I did enjoy was the family relationship between Lewis and Jonathan, they both accepted each other so readily and formed an almost immediate bond. A nice family dynamic.
The magic is something I did not really understand there was a lot of it that could have been explained a bit more but I mean it was ok in a certain way, because in the end there is really no logic to how it works, the magic is based on intention or wish I assume because they manage to use nonsense to get a ritual... It really did not make sense, which was the point of it, to begin with.... But still, it made the story go off rail because the very little explained magic just throws itself down a cliff. So, in other words, the lack of explanations for the magic system dampers my enjoyment a bit because it feels like it was a bit too convenient for it to actually work out the way it did, but if you ignore that the rest of the story is very enjoyable.
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