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    The Funhouse
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    The Funhouse
    Unavailable
    The Funhouse
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Funhouse

    Written by Dean Koontz

    Narrated by Karen Peakes

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Once there was a girl who ran away and joined a traveling carnival. She married a man she grew to hate-and gave birth to a child she could never love. A child so monstrous that she killed it with her own hands.… Twenty-five years later, Ellen Harper has a new life, a new husband, and two normal children-Joey loves monster movies, and Amy is about to graduate from high school. But their mother drowns her secret guilt in alcohol and prayer. The time has come for Amy and Joey to pay for her sins.…

    Because Amy is pregnant.

    And the carnival is coming back to town.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 20, 2015
    ISBN9781501215032
    Unavailable
    The Funhouse
    Author

    Dean Koontz

    Dean Koontz is the author of more than a dozen New York Times No. 1 bestsellers. His books have sold over 450 million copies worldwide, and his work is published in 38 languages. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania and lives with his wife Gerda and their dog Anna in southern California.

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    Reviews for The Funhouse

    3.5/5

    452 ratings22 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Not as creepy as some of his novels but still a goody. The story feels a little unfinished though. I was hoping to read more about Ellen. I really cared about her and wanted to see her redeem herself in her children's eyes.
    • 4/5
      The carnival is an exciting setting for a horror novel. Makes you wonder why you go to them: it's the freaks, funhouses and grinning clowns. I kept saying to the characters: "Don't do that, you'll be sorry." A bizarre, quick, easy read--creepy read for Halloween time.
    • 5/5
      A great listen. The narrator really kept my interest, which doesn’t happen often.
    • 3/5
      Giving three stars because I can applaud the narration. But the story and religious undertones were almost cheesy and the supernatural aspect was cheesy too.
    • 2/5
      Should have let the kids arrive back home to tell mom that it was all over.
    • 5/5
      Very good and not so gruesome. Def written on an 80s vibe with a funhouse and smoking dope and girls saying "babe".
    • 5/5
      That was a great ride!! Very suspenseful and edge of your seat....loved it!
    • 2/5
      Boy, did I ever hate this book!

      It was originally released decades ago under a pen name. When the audio came up for free, I jumped on the chance, because I loved Dean Koontz back in the day. I thought that because I enjoyed his older books like The Watchers, that I would enjoy this one. I was wrong.

      There were so many cliches in this book, it became sad. The characters were predictable and (surprise!) cliche. There was potential here but nothing original came out of this story.

      The narrator was okay, but the voice of the character of Liz almost drove me insane. If there were ever a character targeted for death in a novel, it was her. I just don't know why we had to listen to her whine so much-just kill her already.

      I would have been pissed if I had paid money for this audio book.

      I'm sorry, but I can't recommend it for anyone-least of all fans of horror.
    • 5/5
      Very well spoken book ,love Dean Koontz books .have saved the rest to listen too
    • 1/5
      I used to over Dean Koontz in the 90s. The last couple books this one and Relentless VERY disappointed.
    • 2/5
      A re-read as part of an attempted book clearance, this one was fun to revisit though in the worst way. I’ve said a few times that early Koontz books seem much of a product of the time in which he wrote them. The Funhouse, with its matriarch that would give Carrie’s mother a run for her money, and carnival monstrosities, is the most dated yet. This book is for those who like B-movies so bad they are good…which is exactly what this is as it’s the novelisation of a film of the same name, directed by Tobe Hooper. Never having seen the film I tracked down the trailer and even from the one and a half minutes of excerpts I can tell the book is better. Not a keeper for me but a nostalgic look back at 80s horror. Too much tell rather than show but my biggest complaint with the book feels like the lack of payoff. To me the conclusion was less than satisfactory and somewhat abrupt when taking the amount of backstory into account.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      on Monday, April 05, 2004 I wrote about this book:

      Started reading yesterday in the evening. Finished this morning.
      Well It seemed I had not read this one and I enjoyed reading the book.
      No dogs this time, no perfect people (some of dean's books are like that, a perfect couple with a dog ;-) )

      Really needed a book like this. One you could not stop reading.
    • 4/5
      Koontz said he wrote the book before the movie came out and it shows, The book is sawesom and gives you a nice scare. A young mother gives birth to what she considers an abomination and as she slowly starts to lose her sanity she dicides to kill the baby. He husband who runs the carnaival she has been working for goes mad trying to save it. Cut to 17 years later and the carnival owner has beensearchg for his missing wife, looking for revenge. He finds her children for her new marriage and sets  up a plan to lure them in and kill them for revenge. It works well as most Koontz novels do.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This book was pretty freaky and gross, which means Koontz did a good job. I would have liked the ending to contain some interactions with the mother. Typically his older books are better in my opinion, and this one held my attention, and I finished it in only a few days. Not his best, but no where near his worst.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Dean Koontz has a way with words... his dark humor, sarcastic comebacks, and clever analogies were as expected, a wonderful tone for this book. This is one of those books that keeps you thinking, oh my, now what!!?? I very much enjoyed the journey of most of this story, however it only got three stars from me because while the story built up quite nicely and the actions in the book were mentally vivid, I feel the closing of the story fell short. It almost seems as if the ending was rushed and incomplete. However with that in mind, it was an all around good book and I will certainly be back for more Dean Koontz.
    • 3/5
      A bizarre, quick, easy read. Not Koontz's best, but still creepy as usual!
    • 2/5
      The best part of this book was that I was able to look up 15 new words I didn't know! I kid you not.
    • 5/5
      i love dthis book! it is a light read with just the right amount of horror! it is like you r reading a mmovie script its really great!
    • 3/5
      This book was written AFTER the movie came out but I read the book first. I was 12 or 13 when I read this and I am now 34. This made me want to join a traveling carnival just to see if there where freaks like in the book.
    • 1/5
      Read it . . . but now can't remember a single thing about it. That's hardly a mark in this book's favor, so given that Koontz has written a plethora of these novels, you might as well skip this one.
    • 3/5
      Ellen once had a baby. It was deformed. It was a freak. So she killed it and ran away. Now, the father of it is back, and he wants revenge. He's going to hurt Ellen the way she hurt him, through her two innocent children, Amy and Joey.This book was okay. It had its scary moments, but they were few and far between. I wasn't particularly fond of Koontz's use of Ellen's religious mania. I'm not terribly religious myself, but it ranks up there with amnesia as one of my least favorite plot devices.All in all, the book was what I needed at the time: an easy, quick read when I wanted a break from the tome that is The Count of Monte Cristo. But to be honest, unless you're a die-hard fan Dean Koontz or the horror genre, I don't recommend this book.3 stars.
    • 5/5
      this short novel will hold yoiu on the edge of your seat. do not start it unless you have a few hours to spend with it, as it keeps you glued to the story just as if you were hypnotozed. At least, it did that for me because it represents the struggle between G(o)od and Evil soooooo well. I award stars based on the clearness, tightness, and integrity of the story, not necessarily for the subject matter or time's approval. Re the latter, some solons are still offering James Fennimore Cooper as a "great" New York writer, and "The Last of the Mochicans" still is published and purchased and, presumably, read. Yet Cooper overwrites to such a degree it becomes a parody of style, and the "noble savage" becomes a paragon of bufoonery.