i was blown away by this book. it is so different from the tv show and in a good way. the main character, Eleanor Vance, stayed with me even after finishing the book. i feel so angry and sad because of what happened to her. at first, i thought there would be some timid romance between theo and nellie, but i was wrong. what happened instead was that theo, and luke, turned against nellie. as a reader, i cannot fully blame them for the decline of nellie's mental health and her eventual grim wooden fate.
the house is a character as well, a malicious one. all of the residents of the house, not counting mrs. montague and arthur, fell under the spell of hill house, which meant they went through what i think is a change in personality. that change is what made them turn on nellie, start teasing her and often being outright mean. nellie trusted them, felt like they accepted her and like she finally belonged somewhere, after spending most of her life in the shadow of her mother, and after her mother's death, her sister.
in the beginning, dr. montague tells the others a story of hill house's former residents, the crane family. most importantly, we are introduced to mr, cranes daughters, who had a quirrel over inheriting the hill house that lasted until their lives ended. there could be drawn a parallel between the crane sisters and vance sisters, the latter having an argument over who would take the car in the very beginning of the novel. what also may have been intentional, is the instant clicking between theo and nellie. nellie, being portrayed as shy and reserved, immediately chatting and making friends with theo as soon as she entered the house, is a key element to the story. they bonded fairly quickly, achieving almost a cousin-like relationship, due to being eerily similar with similar backgrounds. that is why, after theo changed her behaviour, nellie felt a deep, burning anger towards her, even wanting to harm her and watch her die. this clearly indicated anger issues in nellie, that were very well hidden for so long.
what is also interesting is the mother-daughter relationship between nellie and her deceased mother. it is stated in the novel, that nellie spent a long time taking care of her ill mother; living with her, sleeping in a room next to hers, being woken up in the middle of the night every night to give her medicine. after her mother died, nellie went on to live with her sister, in a nursery room. now that i think about it, the most haunted room in hill house was the nursery room. there were many instances in which it was obvious the house took a liking to nellie and wanted to keep her forever. that is why it infiltrated her mind, making her more susceptible to criticism from theo and luke. it slowly isolated her, making her feel unwanted, mocked, threatened, so that she would accept to stay in hill house forever. if we assume the connection between hill house and nellie was well established, that could explain why the nursery was the most haunted place... or not.
the question of the library remains unanswered. why couldnt nellie go into the library? it does have to do something with her mother, but i cant figure out what.