Name: Imogen Barr's review of The Death House by Sarah Pinborough
Item: The Death House
Rating: 4
Author: Imogen Barr

Sarah Pinborough

This is an exceptional, contemporary, heart-breaking novel. Toby's life was perfectly normal . . . until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test. Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House; an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium. No one returns from the sanatorium. Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes. Because everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts. You can learn more about Sarah Pinborough at www.sarahpinborough.com, or by following @SarahPinborough on twitter.

The Death House

Imogen Barr

         I’ve always found it odd how I end up reading books with similar themes around the same time.  It happens all the time.  I read this book on the heels of Hunting by Stars, which is a young adult dystopian fiction, and this book is a dystopian fiction featuring a bunch of young adults (and some younger children as well).  While the two are vastly different, the dystopian fiction similarity part existed. 

            This book was compared to The Lord of the Flies in a number of the reviews I read.  I disagree.  This is not a group of feral boys attempting to exert their power.  This is a group of kids who have been told they have a condition that is fatal and they need to be removed from society.  They are in a secure environment with adults present, they have a schedule, and they even go to school.  While the adults stay out of the day-to-day interactions amongst the children, they’re still there, watching.  The kids really don’t do horrible things to each other, it’s pretty much typical kid shenanigans.  Pinborough was able to create a community with these kids, and it didn’t feel like there was a ton of animosity amongst them, even with the arrival of the ”romantic” interest of two of the older boys.  The kids felt like a family (ish). 

            By the time we get to the end, we see that this group of youngsters was able to forge their own paths and their own relationships, despite the circumstances they were in.  They faced some very adult situations that they handled relatively well.  There are a lot of things to love about this story, even though it’s considered a horror. 

Kristen Claiborn

         I’ve always found it odd how I end up reading books with similar themes around the same time.  It happens all the time.  I read this book on the heels of Hunting by Stars, which is a young adult dystopian fiction, and this book is a dystopian fiction featuring a bunch of young adults (and some younger children as well).  While the two are vastly different, the dystopian fiction similarity part existed. 

            This book was compared to The Lord of the Flies in a number of the reviews I read.  I disagree.  This is not a group of feral boys attempting to exert their power.  This is a group of kids who have been told they have a condition that is fatal and they need to be removed from society.  They are in a secure environment with adults present, they have a schedule, and they even go to school.  While the adults stay out of the day-to-day interactions amongst the children, they’re still there, watching.  The kids really don’t do horrible things to each other, it’s pretty much typical kid shenanigans.  Pinborough was able to create a community with these kids, and it didn’t feel like there was a ton of animosity amongst them, even with the arrival of the ”romantic” interest of two of the older boys.  The kids felt like a family (ish). 

            By the time we get to the end, we see that this group of youngsters was able to forge their own paths and their own relationships, despite the circumstances they were in.  They faced some very adult situations that they handled relatively well.  There are a lot of things to love about this story, even though it’s considered a horror. 

Stay with Me

Emelie

Tegan Anderson

The Death House is a horror novel, published in 2016 by English author Sarah Pinborough. I found out about it through Movellas: a signed copy was a prize for the competition about the book.

The book focuses on Toby, a young boy living in England at some point in the future. He leads a normal life until he is marked as a ‘defective’ by a simple blood test. He is sent away to the Death House, a boarding school for other children who are marked as ‘different’ by their blood. Everyone is terrified and no one is sure what is going to happen to them. Their lives are monitored by nurses for any changes in their health. Anyone who shows deteriorations is sent away in the night to the sanatorium. They never return.

Toby tries hard to avoid being noticed, choosing to sleep during daytime and not taking his sleeping pills so he can wander around the house at night. It’s only when Clara arrives that his life is disrupted again, causing him to seek more out of his monotone life.

From the synopsis, I thought the book would contain many horror or thriller elements, especially as this book is advertised in the horror genre. However, the author failed to portray the intensity of the creepiness which I was originally expecting. There are also many questions throughout the story which remain unanswered. What happens to those who go to the sanatorium? What was the origin of the sickness? Why do the children have to be taken away from home? Nevertheless, I adored much of the book and it will forever remain as one of my favourite YA’s, due to my emotional attachment to the characters and many of the key themes, specifically death. Death is one of the things that frightens me most so it has become one of the things that I am most obsessed with.

The main character, Toby, is the character who I was instantly drawn towards, not just because he is the one who narrates the story. He is mature and brave beyond his age, obvious from the way he thinks about his wrecked life and how he cares for Will later in the book. He has a strong friendship with the other boys in the house – especially the ones in Dorm 4. However, most of the other characters in the book are not well developed: they only appear when they need to play a role in Toby’s story.

Overall, The Death House is a beautifully told story. For me, I read it as a love story, and not just about romantic love. Pinborough has captured the complexity of the lives and losses of the characters. The hopes and fears of the main characters are awakened in a heart-breaking but inevitable ending.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys character driven novels, slightly cheesy but heart-breaking endings, and more unanswered questions than your favourite mystery novel.

Imogen Barr &
The Death House by Sarah Pinborough

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