The House on Maple Street

I finished the short story, 'The House on Maple Street' and I must say, it's not what I was expecting at all. When I started reading this story, I was expecting a real horror story. When I had finished reading, I was left sitting thinking to myself. "that...was the most dissappointing and pointless story I've ever read." I found the story totally aimless.
The characters themselves were well developed, but they were dull. The story was realistic, so much though to the point where it was just reading a boring chapter into someone's life. The plot to the story wasn't very descriptive either. The ideas put into it were interesting, and unique, but weren't used to their full extent.

Trent, Laurie, Brian, and Lissa are the four children in the story. Their Mom, Catherine, was newly married to Lew Evans. Lew was a horrible stepfather, and an abusive husband. The kids wanted to send him away. A rather typical storyline I thought. One day, in a crack in the wall, Lissa saw a strange vein of metal. When the four children investigated it, they found it ran through most of the top floor. As they investigated later that month, the found that the metal was moving, and growing inside the house, completely filling it.

Trent later discovered that the metal was coming from the wine cellar in the basement. There were glowing numbers counting down. These numbers said that the clock would reach 00:00:00 in about 3 days time. He decided that somethign would happen to the house, and it would get rid of Lew. How he figured that would happen, I'm not sure, but he's a main character, so he will typically figure everything out.

Well, he made a plan to get everyone out of the house, while Lew was locked in his own office. The house grew wings and flyed away...literally. The metal turned out to be some substance from space, and when the odd glowing counter reached 00:00:00, the house turned into a spaceship and flew off into the night. The story ended with The four children standing in pouring rain laughing maniacal, evil laughter.

I was seriously disappointed in this. It was interesting enough...but it was still dull. The book has yet to give me nightmares. I only hope later chapters are more interesting, if I have the motivation to pick up the book again. It still isn't really catching my interest.

~Amber