I'll be brief, since I only just read and reviewed a paper copy of this back in June.

David Warner's narration was good, although I occasionally wished that a female narrator had been chosen instead, since he didn't always fit Eleanor and Theodora very well. From the look of things, both Audible and Kobo only have the version of this book narrated by Bernadette Dunn, which might potentially have worked better for me for that reason.

This is definitely one of those books that invites rereading. This time around, I knew what was going to happen and could therefore approach the story's events in a different way. Although I enjoyed that aspect and ended up with a new favorite interpretation of what happened, I was still frustrated with the way The Haunting of Hill House promised more of a ghost story than it actually delivered. It had some great creepy moments, and I just wanted more. Instead, I got several characters who became increasingly difficult to tolerate, and that ending.

I appreciated the ending more this time around than I did the first. In fact, taking my new interpretation of the story into account*, it was a perfectly logical and fitting ending. But I really wanted more creepy haunted house stuff, and ghosts.


 * That Hill House

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Finished!

This second time through the story gave me a different perspective of it, but I don't think it's going to change my overall rating of 3 stars. It has some excellent moments, but it isn't the kind of ghost story I wanted it to be. In fact, this time around I came to the conclusion that

Remaining squares on my Halloween Bingo card that this would work for:

Gothic: I think this counts? It's one of the top tags for it in Goodreads.

Terror in a Small Town: Technically it's terror just outside a small town. I know this takes place almost entirely in Hill House, but there's a certain creepy aspect to the nearby town as well.

Supernatural: It depends on what you think was going on at Hill House.

Ghost Stories: I have my opinion on this, but most of the characters believed that Hill House was haunted, so it fits.

Genre: Horror

The fact that the planchette didn't work in the library seems to support my theory about Hill House, Eleanor, and Theodora, especially considering what Eleanor was thinking just a few minutes ago, during her daydreaming.

I'm now to the point where Eleanor just grates on my nerves. I'm pretty sure there is nothing anyone could say to her that she wouldn't mentally pick apart and twist into either an attack on herself or an attempt at patronizing her. Which isn't to say I think she's misinterpreting her current relationship with Theodora. Surely there's another bedroom Theodora could have used, considering the size of Hill House, but I wouldn't be surprised if the men thought it'd reassure Theodora and Eleanor to room together.

Theory (which I haven't yet had a chance to test against everything that happens):