51 pages • 1 hour read
Clive BarkerA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The main protagonist, Harvey Swick, is 10 years old, and as the story begins, his extreme boredom provides the catalyst that prompts Rictus’s arrival and offer of a vacation at Holiday House. Always bold and inquisitive, Harvey accepts the invitation and delights in the House’s many pleasures before he begins to suspect that something nefarious is lurking beneath the pleasant surface of his surroundings. His determination to understand the House, escape from it, and return to free the other children are the motive force that drives the plot.
Throughout his adventure, Harvey learns deep truths about the nature of pleasure desire, and dark temptation. He also learns The Perils of Pleasure when he accepts the duplicitous gifts of strangers, and he must wrestle with his own conscience when those same strangers induce him to indulge his darker, more violent impulses. Ultimately, however, Harvey is able to break free of the House’s ominous influences and instead diverts his dark urge to kill and destroy into a heroic quest to vanquish the House and destroy its ability to abuse children.
Action & Adventure
View Collection
Action & Adventure Reads (Middle Grade)
View Collection
Childhood & Youth
View Collection
Fantasy & Science Fiction Books...
View Collection
Good & Evil
View Collection
Juvenile Literature
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
Religion & Spirituality
View Collection