Synopsis
“The Inner Room” is a classic “strange story” by Robert Aickman and is open to various interpretations. When Lene chooses an odd and awkward dolls house as a present she finds that the dolls inside are inaccessable. Later, her brother works out that the house also harbours an inaccessable “inner room”.
Review
This a very quick short story at just 80 pages long, so the perfect piece to pick up as a boost to your reading goal!
It was a strange little story in the end. It had the set up to be a wonderful little horror story, with the gigantic gothic dollhouse found in the back of a weird rundown toy shop. Unfortunately, this one ended up having too much other *stuff* in it to really focus on the dollhouse and how it was encroaching on the main characters mental state.
The tension built at the end of the story was fantastic and thoroughly creepy, however, the climax never came, instead it just sort of fizzled out leaving the conclusion of the story feeling lacklustre.
I like Aickman’s prose, it was slow and drawn out, but there was also something quite hypnotizing about it. I have a collection of some of his other short stories to read which I’m excited to get to, I just hope they impress me more than this one did!
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Book Details:
Pages: 80
Edition Published: 2019
Genre: Short Stories, Horror
Goodreads Av. Rating: 3.72
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