Algunas puertas deberían permanecer cerradas... En Barrington House, un elegante bloque de pisos londinense, hay un apartamento vacío. Nadie entra, nadie sale. Y ha permanecido así durante cincuenta años. Hasta que una noche el vigilante oye unos ruidos después de medianoche y decide ir a investigar. Lo que experimenta allí basta para cambiar su vida para siempre. La joven Apryl llega a Barrington House procedente de Estados Unidos. Ha heredado un apartamento de su misteriosa tía abuela Lillian, fallecida en extrañas circunstancias. Se rumorea que Lillian estaba loca. Pero su diario insinúa que estuvo implicada en un suceso terrible e inexplicable varias décadas atrás. Decidida a averiguar algo sobre esta excéntrica mujer, Apryl comenzará a desentrañar la historia oculta de Barrington House. No tardará demasiado en descubrir que un mal que transforma a la gente aún habita el edificio. Y que la puerta del apartamento 16 es el acceso a algo mucho más terrorífico...

When I started reading, I thought this was going to be a typical British haunted house story. It turned out not to be, the plot is closer to the plots seen in H. P. Lovecraft than Henry James, Edith Wharton or Wilkie Collins.

Barrington House is not the Bramford, and yet it does have something in common with the building where Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse started their family planning. It is not Bly House and there are no children being threatened by vengeful spirits....and yet some elements of Bly House are duplicated in Barrington House.

Still, it was an entertaining read, with plenty of suspense and enough foreshadowing that you get a dread chill down your spine when you suspect the real goings-on in the story. A few chapters were a little to tripped out for me, but once I waded through them it was pretty smooth sailing.

I am liking Adam Nevill's writing very much. Have started The House of Small Shadows now, which seems to be more to my taste; I adore an author who seems to have as much love for Victorian architectural details as I do.

The blurbs are hailing him as "Britain's Answer to Stephen King". That makes me cringe and I almost didn't read the book because of it. However, I was so pleasantly surprised! Nevill was born in 1969, so all the tiresome baby boomer references, worship for everything that happened in the '60's and love of tired out counter-culture music is absent. Hooray!!!!

I will be reading all of Nevill's books in the future. ( )

First, why, why, WHY could she not just have been called APRIL instead? Why?
With that special snowflake out of the way, the book was ok, kinda boring, not overly scary, nothing overly new either: An artist obsessed with gross/grotesque/gorey stuff, some creepy apartment where something bad happened, and occult all mixed in a nice pot.
Seth's chapters, which I guess were meant to be shockingly gross, were the most annoying of all. On the one hand, the way the mental decline was portrayed was kinda ok, on the other, the whole shock/disgusting thing was not overly shocking after the initial description, and got boring quickly. I admit, I skimmed after a few.
Apryl's chapters were better, even if I cringed whenever her name was mentioned. I didn't like the "love interest" bit (it felt out of place and kind of forced), but I did pretty much sort of enjoyed the rest; at least, it had a nicer, creepier atmosphere, even if it was still boring.

An ok book, if you're not expecting much out of it. ( )

Apartment 16 starts off with a very ominous atmosphere and an intriguing mystery is used to entice readers into turning the pages. The book begins by setting the scene beautifully, giving the readers an inside look into who the characters are and what their purpose is. The first few chapters shows us just how different life can be with money and without… However, it becomes clear that sometimes there can be too much of a good thing when it comes to writing.

Adam Nevill, an on the up-and-up British author, obviously have a lot of talent and there’s no denying that he has the potential to truly scare the living daylights out of his readers if he was so inclined, but Apartment 16 simply didn’t do it for me from about chapter fourteen. Don’t get me wrong, the writing style is definitely some of the finest I’ve seen in a long time, and I do love a lengthy description from time to time, but it simply felt like Nevill sometimes got too obsessed with description and style than to remember to keep the pace in mind too. That being said, Apartment 16 does showcase Nevill’s ability to write wonderfully and it didn’t scare me off of his other work, so I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt for now.

So, should you get your hands on Apartment 16? Honestly, this particular book took me longer than necessary to complete. I typically read a paperback in a day, two days tops, whereas Apartment 16 often had me so frustrated that it took closer to fourteen days to read… The only other author that does that to me is Stephen King, and believe me sometimes I want to throttle Mr. King too. So, it truly depends on whether you, as a reader, will be willing to battle through some of the bad to get to the good parts. Yes, Apartment 16 has a lot of good parts, they’re unfortunately just a bit hidden

(review originally posted on www.tentaclebooks.com) ( )

An endless slug trail of a story, more plod than plot. On the other hand, Nevill creates an effective miasma which, while it won't keep you up, will make you feel uneasy, irritable or both. This was my first and will be my last from this author. After carrying this on my TBR for over a year, it was unpleasant and disappointing. Finishing it was tantamount to being released from prison. ( )