The Gray House
Written by Mariam Petrosyan
Narrated by Scott Merriman
4/5
()
About this audiobook
“The Gray House is enigmatic and fantastical, comic and postmodern…Rowling meets Rushdie via Tartt…Nothing short of life-changing.” —The Guardian
The Gray House is an astounding tale of how what others understand as liabilities can be leveraged into strengths.
Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive. From the corridors and crawl spaces to the classrooms and dorms, the House is full of tribes, tinctures, scared teachers, and laws—all seen and understood through a prismatic array of teenagers’ eyes.
But student deaths and mounting pressure from the Outsides put the time-defying order of the House in danger. As the tribe leaders struggle to maintain power, they defer to the awesome power of the House, attempting to make it through days and nights that pass in ways that clocks and watches cannot record.
A Read Russia Prize Finalist.
Mariam Petrosyan
Mariam Petrosyan was born in 1969 in Yerevan, Armenia. In 1989 she graduated with a degree in applied arts and worked in the animation department of Armenfilm movie studio. In 1992 she moved to Moscow to work at Soyuzmultfilm studio, then returned to Yerevan in 1995. The Gray House is Petrosyan’s debut novel. After working on it for eighteen years, she published it in Russia in 2009, and it became an instant bestseller, winning several of the year’s top literary awards, including the Russian Prize for the best book by a Russian author living abroad. The book has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, and Lithuanian. In interviews Petrosyan frequently says that readers should not expect another book from her, since, for her, The Gray House is not merely a book but a world she knew and could visit, and she doesn’t know another one. Petrosyan is married to Armenian artist Artashes Stamboltsyan. They have two children.
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Reviews for The Gray House
61 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5First I read this book in Russian and I was in love with it. Listening it in English was not worse. But before you start, you need to be ready to listen/read it carefully. It is not an easy read - the story, the characters are extremely catchy and they stick to you for a long time. I would even say that it is a demanding book - in terms that it was so engaging that often it was hard for me to stop reading/listening to it or not to have all the characters in my head when going to bed))) It is a story where you need to put the puzzle together but even when you think you've got it there are many things which remain unknown (especially after the first read). It is an ideal book for those who are ready to travel to an "imaginary" world. Enjoy the journey...
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Not sure about this one..."Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive. From the corridors and crawl spaces to the classrooms and dorms, the House is full of tribes, tinctures, scared teachers, and laws—all seen and understood through a prismatic array of teenagers’ eyes.But student deaths and mounting pressure from the Outsides put the time-defying order of the House in danger. As the tribe leaders struggle to maintain power, they defer to the awesome power of the House, attempting to make it through days and nights that pass in ways that clocks and watches cannot record."Okay by chapter 3 I was so utterly confused I had no idea what the heck was going on in this book. This book is supposed to be about the dynamics of children in an orphanage home (The Gray House) but also has supernatural aspects to it.I understand that this book was originally written in Russian but the language that the author has used is so blocky (not choppy) and it comes off as extremely daunting to read. It's almost like somebody giving a very very stern speech.There's no real plot to the book. At least I did not read a discernible plot. More or less you're just following the characters willy-nilly style.I also think that a lot of this book could have been cut out and it would have made for a little bit better of reading experience for the reader. In this 700+ page chunkster it just becomes so boring to read all this nonsequential nonsense.I really don't know if I can recommend this one for all the reasons stated above. It was not a very enjoyable read for me.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Not my cup of tea. A challenge to write such a book, for sure, but I'm not the audience for it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I don't hate the characters. But, I just don't find the story interesting. And the ages of the children are all too young for their levels of sophistication.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Not sure about this one..."Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive. From the corridors and crawl spaces to the classrooms and dorms, the House is full of tribes, tinctures, scared teachers, and laws—all seen and understood through a prismatic array of teenagers’ eyes.But student deaths and mounting pressure from the Outsides put the time-defying order of the House in danger. As the tribe leaders struggle to maintain power, they defer to the awesome power of the House, attempting to make it through days and nights that pass in ways that clocks and watches cannot record."Okay by chapter 3 I was so utterly confused I had no idea what the heck was going on in this book. This book is supposed to be about the dynamics of children in an orphanage home (The Gray House) but also has supernatural aspects to it.I understand that this book was originally written in Russian but the language that the author has used is so blocky (not choppy) and it comes off as extremely daunting to read. It's almost like somebody giving a very very stern speech.There's no real plot to the book. At least I did not read a discernible plot. More or less you're just following the characters willy-nilly style.I also think that a lot of this book could have been cut out and it would have made for a little bit better of reading experience for the reader. In this 700+ page chunkster it just becomes so boring to read all this nonsequential nonsense.I really don't know if I can recommend this one for all the reasons stated above. It was not a very enjoyable read for me.