THYH reviewed in Vermont’s Seven Days
“A smart comedy, a caper tale by turns sharp and absurd… It is tough to finish reading without turning to the first page and leafing forward again.” Full review here.
Reviews
Good Housekeeping features THYH as a summer read
“Makkai’s screwball intrigue follows two couples sharing a Chicago estate with a hidden history. As two of the spouses pair up to dig into its past as an artists’ colony, their partners begin to suspect foul play. Fresh and fun.” More here.
THYH featured on Huffington Post
“Makkai humorously turns the conventional family saga on its head, in a clever exploration of metamorphosis and secrecy.” Full review here.
Daily Mail (UK)
“Makkai’s second novel defies genre – part literary mystery, part comedy of manners, part wickedly funny satire. Whichever way you look at it, it’s remarkable.”
San Antonio Current
“At times both hilarious and heartbreaking, Makkai creates eccentric characters the reader can’t give up on, even at their very lowest, least likeable points. Makkai’s witty and engrossing writing style belies the nearly Dickensian way she layers characters over time, revealing hidden identities and unknown connections. It is also a very frank story of the lives of working artists and writers: the trade-offs, the losses, the liberation and the need for both community and isolation.
From the opening line to the last, The Hundred-Year House is utterly absorbing. Deceptively light and fast-paced, the story will stay with the reader long after the satisfying conclusion.”
People Magazine
“The darkly funny Makkai seeds the narrative with so many mysteries and surprises – star-crossed lovers! mistaken identities! – that those 100 years race by.” More here.
Denver Post
“What a clever, twisted story Rebecca Makkai has created in The Hundred-Year House… Full of unexpected storytelling and wry humor… Revelations, increasingly delicious and devastating, come faster and more furiously as the text progresses…” Full review here.
THYH praised in Winnipeg Free Press
“It’s a wonderful novel, as beautifully written as it is painstakingly plotted, with the structure to please any literary critic, and a story absorbing enough to satisfy the most ravenous reader… Rare indeed is the novel that combines beautiful prose with ideas as robust as those on display in The Hundred-Year House — not to mention a story like a set of Penrose stairs, connected in the most playful, the most surprising of ways.” Full review here.
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Ingenious… the work of a master builder”
“Both clever and heartfelt, this is a book with something for pretty much everyone. Makkai has furnished it like a sturdy yet finely detailed old house, with comfortable nooks, doors with keyholes, mirrors in every hallway, and, oh yes, that restless ghost in the attic.” Read the full review here.
Toronto Star calls THYH “a smart comedy with a satisfyingly fierce pace”
“Here, we find a writer with an innately intelligent and assured comedic voice, someone who obviously has a deep literary pedigree but appears more interested in having fun on the page and puzzling out the complexities of a tightly woven plot. The pleasures of Makkai’s novel are contagious, all of which makes The Hundred-Year House an ideal novel for this hot summer.” Read the full review here.
