The Death House by Sarah Pinborough

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 288

Publisher: Gollancz

Released: 12th of November 2016 

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Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear.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

What I Have to Say 

This book was good, but I didn't get caught up in it in the way I do with most things. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, I just didn't really care about what happened. I had no real curiosity about anything, which as there wasn't that much explained to us about the illness or anything really other than hints about the society that has led to the creation of the Death House, it's probably a good thing that I wasn't anxious to know more. 

I didn't really like Toby that much really. He was a little dull and I guess that was partly from the depression of being in a house like that, just waiting to die. But Clara, I liked much better. She was lively and she climbed trees and she seemed to genuinely care about the other characters. I liked seeing her make Toby a better person. 

The background characters were more interesting as well. I really liked Will and Elinor and some of the other smaller characters. 

I think I'd have liked it much better if they were actually fighting against it more. It wasn't that nothing happened, but most of the plot just centred around the characters interacting with each other and there wasn't much to grip me, 

It's a good book if you like good relationships between characters, but otherwise I just wasn't into it. 

My thanks go to Gollancz for providing me with this copy for review.