Unfortunately, this novella didn't work for me at all: I was cautiously hopeful for a second chance with the author's writing, after being disappointed by the Memory Called Empire, but I feel this novella shares a lot of the same shortfallings that put me off Arkady Martine's novel previously. As was the case with Teixcalaan books, the premise and the set-up are compelling, promising a smart chewy story to follow, but the execution doesn't live up to it on idea level or on sentence level. Rose/House has a very Asimov-style neo-noir premise: a haunted house with a terrible AI personality, a legacy an insane genius architecht, a locked room murder mystery, America of the future century, a couple of disillusioned cops. Execution? A lot of exhausting, mediocre poetry at line level, complete with interrupted syntax and a criminal overuse of the word stucco, too many viewpoints for such a short story, a handwavy depiction of Big Ideas, which are not that big to begin with, and general incoherence that doesn't even read like moody and atmosphere-creating to me. It scans like tiresome posturing with no intellectual or emotional reward for the time spent with it. I think, with this, I will conclude that Arkady Martine's books are not for me, and will let others enjoy them without any FOMO.

This book felt a bit like a fever dream, but in a good way! I really liked the setting and the atmosphere, as well as the imagery. Arkady Martine did a really good job at building up an incredible sense of dread and I was genuinely creeped out and uncomfortable for parts of the book. The imagery in the writing was also fantastic: I could perfectly visualise the house and its harsh beauty. It made me feel very immersed, which really added to that build up in tension. The dialogue from the house was also exsquistely creepy, I really got a feel for its personality and its tangled motivations. The amount of worldbuilding Martine managed to pack into such a short book without it feeling infodump-y was also really impressive. Nothing felt fake or over-the-top, it was all natural and genuine and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if our future ended up looking like this!
However, after all of this excellent build up, I was left a little unsatisfied by the ending. It felt like the book just sort of ‘stopped’ and there was a bit of an anticlimax. I wanted a bit more from the story. The characters also suffered a little from the short page count- I felt like I didn’t really get to know them all that well. This meant that certain reveals and twists didn’t quite land as they should have. I think this just could’ve benefited from being a bit longer and more developed.
Despite the anticlimax, I did still enjoy the atmosphere and tension overall. I do really love experimental science fiction and I'll be checking out more by this author in the future! Look out for this one if you want a creepy, atmospheric, multilayered and dream-like sci-fi story!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. I picked this one up as I loved the author's other work, however this novella did not leave as strong an impression in comparison. I think the author did a fantastic job in terms of atmosphere and I did like the way that the Rose House AI was presented. However I feel like overall the novella did not work for me as an overall story, and the ending did not feel very satisfying.