Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

56 reviews

arealpup's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Gore, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, and Death of parent

graphic content detail:

there's a graphic eye scene involving stabbing a needle into a character's eye which last for several pages as well as sawing off a characters arm

thanksfrthemoomeries's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve now read 3 of Grady Hendrix’s books and this one is my favorite this far. I actually thought as I read it “oh, so he can write a good book!”  Compared to the other two I’ve read, Final Girl Support Group and A Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, I found this book to be the most entertaining and well-written. It was still predictable, but I had more fun reading this and I believe the story played out better than the other books of his I’ve read. One thing Hendrix always manages to do is make me squirm and pause my reading, so at least that is consistent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Self harm, Excrement, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death

haileyhardcover's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

How to Sell A Haunted House tells the story of Louise and her brother, Mark, who are grappling with the sudden, violent death of their parents… and all of the many secrets they left behind. This is more than a horror story. It’s about grief, complex family relationships, generational trauma, secrets, and puppets. 

So much about this book surprised me in the best way. I wouldn’t say it was scary, per se, but it definitely made my heart race! Multiple times, my jaw dropped, my eyes bulged, and I pterodactyl-screeched at what I was reading. There is another chilling surprise around every corner, and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Murder, and Gaslighting

Minor: Self harm, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

mitchreads's review

dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Death of parent

gopackandstats's review

dark funny sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, and Gaslighting

Minor: Animal death, Drug use, and Alcohol

joooooools's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

After reading three books by this author now, I feel comfortable saying: I am not a fan. Frankly, I’m not sure how they’re getting book deals, or how their editor still has a job. Bad writing in general, overuse of tired metaphors and similes, cloying depictions of gratuitous violence…and those are issues I have with all of their work, not specific to this title. More than once I was tempted to throw in the towel and return the book early, but I finished it because I just wanted to know what happened in the end; I lost 11 hours of my life in the process, though, so I guess the joke’s really on me. Grady Hendrix I am begging you please take some writing workshops!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

maggiekateb's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

thetinyhealer's review

mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book was pretty interesting and strange. I never thought I'd listen to an audiobook about haunted puppets, but here we are. 

This was a story about loss and generational trauma told as two dysfunctional siblings try to uncover the mysteries surrounding their familial past and strange happenings in their deceased parent's house.

There are some things about this story that just don't make sense, and there are some pretty unforgivable things the characters do that seem to just get glossed over and are never mentioned again. I also don't believe the redemption arc in certain characters that I think we're supposed to feel. The story kept my attention but it also had me frequently thinking, really? I'm supposed to be scared of puppets? It could make a good PG-13 movie for spooky season, but I wouldn't go super out of my way to recommend this book to a friend.

On the positive side? I think this author did a great job of writing a strong, sensible and independent FMC. And I appreciated that she was a meaningful character on her own, without needing any kind of romantic relationship in her story. This book also kept me interested pretty consistently. It normally takes me a while to get through audoobooks but I ripped through this one within a couple of days. A very strange concept, but a ride of a book for sure. 



Trigger warning! There are a few gory scenes. May include: eyes, limbs, blood. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gun violence and Vomit

more detail on trigger warnings: eye gets stabbed with a needle, dismembered limb, multiple hospital scenes, scenes where people are scratched or cut bloody by a knife or claws, building burned down with people inside, multiple attempted / successful murders of children by other children, generational trauma that relatives refuse to acknowledge, parental death, child death, and the brother constantly being a complete and utter jerk to his grieving sister.

andyandnormski's review

dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

As much as I wanted to like this book, it fell flat for me. The dust jacket more or less promised a haunted house story. What I got instead was a possessed puppet, and while the reveal of its origins at the end was well written, the puppet itself came out of left field a little too fast for me. It felt jarring when, up until that point, over half the story revolved around the siblings and a haunting sense of foreboding. Once the puppet arrived on the scene, it went from feeling somber to slapstick horror. I think my problem was there was no sense of build-up towards the puppet being alive and to the extreme levels that it was. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Gaslighting

Minor: Violence

hmetwade's review

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail