Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

30 reviews

julieyael's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

3.75

3.5 stars but rounded up

This is a book that I took time to really appreciate. 
The first half of it (that’s the first 200 pages!) were just ok. It’s a bit slow and I did not care too much for the characters. 
For a moment, I even thought about not finishing the book, because I felt that this was not what I expected from the story. 

But then it becomes more intriguing and you feel that there is more to it. 
When you enter the last third of the book, it becomes hard to leave it. 
I wished the slow part of the begining was not that long, because it’s all well written and you feel the creepy atmosphere building up. 

In the end, the book kept its promises, it’s a fun and creepy horror novel, with a good dose of paranormal, and a light touch of gory details (very light, but I guess it can be triggering for some people)

So I would recommend it, if you are ready to spend some time on the first part which is less exciting and a bit long to my taste. 
The second half of it really deserves a good 4 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Gore

Minor: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Alcohol

chasingpages1's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Pregnancy and Alcohol

booklovingcatmom's review against another edition

dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

kshertz's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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? No

4.25

What a weird wild ride? I guess that’s Grady’s specialty. It gets really twisted with dolls, clowns, and puppets. I almost threw up once. I had to put the book down a few times. Im very happy my house had none of these things. Read it if you want to be grossed out and horrified by puppets and dolls and clowns. I liked it but also, probably something i’m going to need to bring up in therapy next week🙃

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

kmatera1's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Parts of this book seriously scared the sh*t out of me but I couldn’t put it down! Loved how much the characters were developed throughout the story and their worldview was constantly challenged. The ending was satisfying and overall, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this. Would definitely recommend it to someone looking for a spooky, tense read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Violence, and Death of parent

toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I think this was pretty good, probably my second favorite Grady Hendrix that I've read so far. I think what really took it over the edge was the sibling dynamic and the themes of grief of several types throughout. It became less about the horror of it all and more about the humanity of our main characters, even when the horror became just a little absurd. I think the only reason this isn't a 5 star for me is just that I think there are some aspects that could've been explained better in the narrative. I still have some questions that are annoying me. Overall though, a decent read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Pregnancy

aprilbethp's review against another edition

dark funny tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I’m a huge Grady Hendrix fan but this was my least favorite of his books.

Listen, I enjoy camp but this was just over the top. I usually love how Hendrix is able to blend camp humor and horror together. The problem for me was that there wasn’t one moment I was scared for the characters. There were a lot of “well, that’s gross and horrific” moments of body gore but not many if any moments of “how are they gonna survive this” moments.

I appreciated the themes of generational trauma and family systems. I always love how Hendrix tackles bigger issues with compassion, humor, and spot on analysis. I also appreciated how unlikeable most characters are because sometimes when in a family you see too much of what makes our own family members, ourselves included, unlikeable. Yet, we still love them. Those dynamics rang true to me.

But the haunting of puppets…

Pupkin

was so ridiculous that everything

he

said and did,  it just wasn’t scary. And while humor is key to all of Hendrix’s books, this humor pulled me out of the story. I like horror that feels realistic even if it contains implausible creatures. I would have perhaps been able to go with it more had

Pupkin not been a hand puppet. Maybe a regular doll or regular ventriloquist dummy? I don’t know the Pupkin commedia masks made sense to me. Completely coverage of the puppeteers the swallowing of them whole. But a small hand puppet made for a child’s hand

…
it was too silly for my brain to take seriously. 

But I did enjoy the read even if no thrills were had. I laughed some. I did cringe at the body gore. I appreciated the themes. I give it a better than average score of 3.5. It achieved what it needed to if not in a fashion I would have hoped for. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Gun violence, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

njmenzel's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I'm not sure any other "horror" book I've ever read can be considered horror after reading How to Sell a Haunted House. This is all of my nightmares and worst fears, bundled together. I hated reading it, and yet, I loved this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Blood, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child death

hallowreads's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Hendrix writes another badly stereotyped female protagonist. Louise is the “uptight, successful man hater”. While some parts of the middle were funny and engaging, I think overall this book should be much shorter. Hendrix needs to challenge himself to write male characters, as the most engaging part of this book was the short section from the main character’s younger brother’s perspective. Mark is the only character in the book that is fully fleshed out with interesting motivations and choices. Overall I don’t recommend readers *not* read this book, but there are more engaging, less problematic books out there by authors creating diverse horrorscapes with fully realized characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Fatphobia, and Gun violence

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

justbkathleen's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

Moderate: Gaslighting

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death