French and Québécois online reviews, part four

“The succession of tests unwinds with clinical frigidity, which contrasts with their content and gives the impression of participating in a game, the stakes of which, however, surpass the dimension of simple play… La Maison des Épreuves is in reality a cry of love and despair, that extracts a sickly beauty from childhood anguishes in order to attempt to exorcise them, a guide for navigation between life and death, a set of directions for tolerating the pain of existence.”

— Ingannmic, “La maison des epreuves — Jason Hrivnak”

BOOK’ING >

MCR: “A book that blew your mind?”
DC: “La Maison des Épreuves by Jason Hrivnak. A nightmarish book recently published by Éditions de l’Ogre, a cross between a survival manual and a kind of search for redemption. It’s the “literary UFO” of the current publishing season.”

— David Cantin, interviewed by Marie-Claude Rioux

Hop! Sous la couette >

“I didn’t expect to find such content and it’s a delight! We have the possibility of participating in the novel, what happiness. I’m astonished to have found what I was able to read into it. The same reflections and choices are waiting for you.”

— Laétitia, “La maison des épreuves”

La demoiselle aux cerfs >

“Jason Hrivnak’s book, La Maison des Épreuves, is one of those collections of stories that open a door hidden in the shadow of our imagination. The door that we avoid, on pain of feeling the heart beat too fast… Book of sorrow and consolation, La Maison des Épreuves, as its name indicates, is meant to test, to show, and to illuminate at the same time that it plunges us into the abyss.”

— “La Maison des Epreuves – Jason Hrivnak”

Oh Océane >

More booksellers on La Maison des Épreuves

“A text that will haunt you like your own nightmares… A gothic tale, chilling in its treatment of the anguish and suffering that sublimate the beauty of our darkness.”

— Élodie, Gibert Joseph Barbès (Paris)

“Lovers of sick books, pounce on La Maison des Épreuves. Massive shock!

— Librairie Mollat (Bordeaux)

“This coming-of-age-gothic-multiple-choice-meta-survival-game (you can breathe now) is a UFO in this January’s literary releases. Once immersed in this book you will find yourself an integral part of it, a spectator/actor and not a voyeur. A shocking novel that pulsates and absorbs you… literally. ‘It is aliiiive!’”

— Roxane, La Librairie du Tramway (Lyon)