A review on the back cover says that Rose/House "...evokes Shirley Jackson's Hill House if designed by Frank Gehry." I know just enough (not much) about Gehry to make some sense of that and I suspect I'd have got more out of the story if I'd ever read The Haunting of Hill House.

Instead Rose/House is an odd story about a death, probably a murder, at a building which is also an AI called Rose House as seen through the eyes of two detectives and briefly one unreliable narrator. The mystery is "solved" but with no motivation ever made clear. And I'm not sure that even Arkady Martine knows the "why", only that there must be questions about what Rose House is, what it will do, how people will perceive and interact with it, and what they will do. ( )

A waking dream, a migraine aura. The Navidson House, but with nanodrones. And desire. ( )

This is an odd book. It's a locked room mystery inside a haunted house, yes, but there is a very heavy science fiction element since the "locked room" which is also a "haunted house" is actually an AI house that thinks for itself. There's a lot of answers provided at the end of the book, even though vanishingly few of them are explicit. Most of the answers are right there for you to pick up—but you have to pick them up, they will not be handed to you.

If you like unreliable narrators, you might greatly enjoy this novella, since there is unreliable EVERYTHING in it. I liked the book, but I'm honestly still a bit bemused by it.

Early on, I wasn't sure which of the characters would end up becoming my favorite, but I certainly did not expect it to be Oliver. My opinion of him turned completely around about halfway through the book. I did enjoy the creepy AI aspect of Rose House, it's a similar feeling to me as GladOS from the Portal video games—down to hints of the same snark at times.

I have my opinions on what the resolution of the big mystery at the end is, though I'll let you try the book and see for yourself. While this is not a new favorite it is a solid story and one that will likely lurk in my memory for a long time to come. (Which, if you've read the book, is very appropriate given the ending.) ( )

This was eerie and mysterious in all the right ways. It had a peak "X-Files Monster of the Week" vibe to it, especially given its short length. I like that the the future Martine crafted here is just slightly different enough to be new and interesting but still relatable and familiar. ( )

this is a very interesting sf novella from the brilliant Arkady Martine involving a locked room mystery, and set in a nearish future. there's an artificial intelligence that's developing an aesthetics of their own, an archivist with a dead architect as a client, a small desert police outpost trying to investigate a murder, and a few noir suspects playing persons of interest. 'what is a house with no doors?' is the question posed, and the detective thinks to herself 'a prison', and from that beginning the Mojave Desert mystery begins to unfold like a flower after rain. ( )