The House of Quiet is a YA Dystopian-Fantasy novel that follows Birdie, as she tries to rescue her sister from the infamous House of Quiet.

The House is a place where children can go after Procedures they’ve entailed have triggered powers that leave them unable to live in regular society. Think Miss Peregrine’s, or Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, but in this story the children feel more like indentured hostages.

Birdie blackmails her way into admission at the house under the guise that she’s a housemaid. She figures once she’s there, she can easily locate her sister, Magpie, and they’ll be able to escape somehow; hopefully.

Unfortunately, once she’s at the house, Birdie sees no signs of Magpie having been there. Instead what she finds is a house steeped in mysteries, that functions nothing like she thought it would.

Though she hoped to keep her head down and focus solely on her mission, Birdie can’t help but be drawn into the lives of the other residents and staff. It’s after she forges some surprising new relationships, that Birdie begins to unravel the truth of the House of Quiet.

This was good, but I wouldn’t say it will be a very memorable story for me. It felt in the same wheelhouse as The Hunger Games, or [book:The Good Luck Girls|36381842], and it has some interesting concepts, but at the end of the day, it felt sort of forgettable.

I am left wanting more exploration of the world, though, which isn’t a bad thing. I’m wondering if this will be developed into a series, or maybe a duology?

I read this one with a friend, and I feel like we both had the same feelings as far as the world-building. We had a lot of questions. I wish it would be explored further, it just felt very opaque.

It has some popular dystopian-features, the way the society is divided, and the stark landscape and rather bleak life prospects of the characters. It is tagged as Gothic, and I get that, but to me this felt much more Dystopian, even bordering a little on Steampunk. That’s more the vibe in my experience.

I did get pulled in pretty quickly. I found it all quite puzzling, and initially I did enjoy trying to figure it all out, but I felt like the author could have answered more.

There’s a lot of different aspects to follow here, including an underground resistance, which I enjoy, I just didn’t feel like I learned enough about the one in this story to care.

As mentioned above, after finishing, I walked away feeling like it wasn’t that memorable and wondering what the point was. It feels unfinished. I had a hard time deciding how to rate it, so ultimately ended up giving it a 3-star. It’s good, but not great.

However, with all of this being said, if there was a sequel, I would pick it up, because I have a lot of questions I still want answers for. We’ll see if that happens.

Thank you to the publisher, Delacorte Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’ve read so many books from White, and always appreciate her creative concepts and willingness to take risks with her writing.

I’ll definitely be picking up whatever she writes next!