Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - She Is a Haunting

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

25 reviews

ferdireads's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

well...what to say abt this one...? *sigh*

the plot was very slow to build, and a lot of situations kept getting hashed out but never resolved. the issues jade started with never get resolved or discussed, so there's no satisfaction there. at one point of the story, it felt like the plot was starting to deviate from what was intended and it just felt really odd. a lot of scenes also felt very out of place, and like a mishmash of ideas. so much was just not clicking; adding onto that the slow pace and buildup, the book starts to disinterest you halfway through.

trang thanh tran did an amazing job with the gothic horror elements of the story, and using bugs/spiders and other creepy crawlers, and parasites, to push the horror aspects was absolutely genius. even if you're someone who isn't squeamish or afraid of these things, reading certain scenes will absolutely make you dry-heave a little and cringe is disgust and fear. im already horribly afraid of all those things, so you can guess how i felt lol.

either way, it was a good gothic horror that utilizes vietnamese cultural elements perfectly, but a lot of it falls flat very fast and jade's poor character development definitely doesn't make things any better. the ending also felt pretty unsatisfying :/. idk if this was the author's debut novel, but it certainly felt like it was.

(one thing im very glad abt tho is that jade is bisexual :') there's very little bi rep out there, so it's very nice to see it)

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guessgreenleaf's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

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rahthesungod's review

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adventurous dark funny informative tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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btrz7's review against another edition

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dark reflective medium-paced

2.5

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lunarexorcist's review

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

i thought this was a new adult book until like twenty pages in my bad. i was so let down jade was 17 and not... like... 22.

i cried at the last forty pages but then went "what. what? what???" until the end. unhinged. i cant decide if it was unhinged in a genius or stupid way, but i will say that

being horny for a ghost that is horny for you also in a toxic yuri way and also a "wow you are so repressed colonialism slash misogyny slash queerphobia is a hell of a thing huh"

is one of the more unique interpretations of "this house eats people" ive seen.

i think the fact everyone sucks so bad throws people off but that just made my chest ache with how real it felt. that was my dad. thats my eldest daughter trauma. im gonna lose it.

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plumdustsuns's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I had typed an entire review but my phone died SMHHH
Anyway. So:
- turned up being a page turner for me
- evocatively beautiful writing and language even with horrific content
- horror wasn’t too distasteful or so which is good for a coward like me

Plot wise:
- by the 200/250 page mark, the plot/incidents began to feel a bit repetitive. Jade goes to sleep, bad dreams, Jade wakes up, fights with dad. I remember I was sHOOK when her dad was digging out the skulls. I wish we had more of that/his hauntings and her seeing him do insane shit instead of just fixing the house and being a stubborn asshat
- lily’s sleepwalking and everything being utilized more would have been cool as well. Using them to go somewhere clue wise and story wise and her being a bit more conflicted about the haunting as she too was being seeped into would have made the stakes feel a lot higher
- I like Jade and Florence but I wish their adventures added more to the story/tightened the plot. Cam being jealous of Florence? Where’s more of that? Why only at the last moment? That would have been so fun and interesting. And seeing Cam’s queerness too in the flashbacks like come onnnn please would have added more to the bad marriage. Maybe her parents discovered her queerness and married her off which is why they don’t talk to her anymore. It could have paralleled Jade’s own fears about coming out and fleshed out their connection, made it more believable and even something to root for in ways

Yeah. There was a lot of interesting content but they all meandered a lot and/or weren’t used to their full potential. Alma being there by the end was blah, we already had a colonizer presence with Marion. Halle didn’t feel too much of a great addition either as we never quite see her or have her back in again.
I wish ‘what did she show you’ to Ba came way before and he showed Jade and we got more of his motivations and it added to his complexities and just the immigrant symbolisms the book was going for. He had so much potential than being just the ‘we’re never leaving’ bad guy and would have brought a lot of cultural weight and justified Jade’s empathy and forgiveness almost of his actions even more. ‘He never spoke about his family before’ WHAT IF HE DID NOW. I like that this was all triggered by his loss of his mother/homeland. We could have went into it more. Him and Jade and Lily could have all had shared psychosis/dreams from the insane food. Sigh. So much lost potential. And if the mom did come in earlier and hadn’t been allowed to leave for a bit? And the escape felt more necessary as pressing as it was all very ‘yeah alright she’s gonna burn down the house now’ without it feeling very consequential to me.
I thought this was a solid almost 3 star read but the more I wrote this review and realized how much more could have been done, the madder I got and realized this was a 2 star read for me at best. But I did enjoy it in ways still.

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