Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - A House with Good Bones

altogether good and quite sweet actually; but i'll be honest this kinda dragged for me. not even a slow burn really, mostly just nothing and then EVERYTHING BAM. newfound love for vultures activated.

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kaneebli's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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mlkshks's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

4.0

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wardenred's review against another edition

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dark funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

A great cruel power, doing almost nothing. Like a dormant volcano. All she did was grow roses.

This didn’t quite beat The Twisted Ones as far as my favorite horror books by T. Kingfisher go, but it’s coming as a very close second! I just absolutely dig the entire thing: the plot, the escalation of tension and horror, the sense of setting, the characters, the vibes. There wasn’t a single dull moment for me here. Just. The way the narrative unfolds? How bad it gets toward the end? How then it gets so much worse and more complex? Chef’s kiss.

I knew rather little about the novel going in, besides the basics like “haunted house horror with southern gothic vibes and family stuff.“ The cover, alongside the first couple of pages, led me to think this would be, at least in some part, bird horror. Without going into spoilery detail, that conclusion was debunked in a really fun way. I mean, the vultures are definitely around a lot and very important for the story! It’s just that there are much scarier things around. Like roses and ladybugs. (Fun fact: I love roses and ladybugs. Both scream safety and sunlight to me. It’s truly a testament to Kingfisher’s talent that she managed to make me fear both for the duration of reading this.)

My favorite part about the book was the relationship between the MC and her mother. Apparently, I’m really interested in exploring dynamics between independent adults and their parents, and I’m not getting enough of it. Edie—the mom—is my favorite character here, in fact. I really admire how she’s done her best to stop the cycle of abuse in her family and be a good parent to her kids. Yes, she wasn’t able shield them from her own mother completely, but she stood up for them and made sure they knew when things weren’t okay rather than normalizing those things. She really did her best to heal that generational trauma, and I admire her so much for that.

All in all, I loved this for the atmosphere, the twists, the humanity of the characters, and the great writing. Definitely goes on my “best of 2024“ list.

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whatkatyread87's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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earl_grey_without_lemon's review against another edition

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fast-paced

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

2.5

I was really excited to read this book because a lot of friends have recommended me T. Kingfisher before, and I am trying to read more books in the horror genre, but I really didn’t enjoy this one, sadly. Read this on audiobook from my library.
To start with the good parts, I really liked the info dumping about insects and plant varieties. The book’s initial premise was also interesting to me (love a good haunting and the line between house and home), although I think where the book really shines is in the middle-end when there’s more action. I found that the most chilling scenes were

the ones where the Gran May rose puppet was seated at the dinner table and talking to Sam and her mother. I wasn’t expecting the rose puppet twist at all, and I thought it was delightfully horrifying imagery!

.
Unfortunately, for a horror book, there is not a lot of tension, or sense of dread. One of my issues with the book is its pacing. I felt like the twist was fairly obvious from the beginning, and I really couldn’t connect with the characters at all. Props to T. Kingfisher for making Sam a fat intelligent woman who loves her job and is passionate about bugs and the ecosystem, because those parts of her felt so real and refreshing to me! But my god, I found her insufferable as our POV character. I can’t remember the exact line, but it’s after

she’s standing in the garden devoid of all the insects, and I thought (as someone who used to keep outdoor plants)

that was such a heartfelt sad moment, and then she immediately ends the scene with some sort of quippy response. I just personally don’t like that sort of snarky POV, it felt like watching a 2010s comedy sketch. Or there’s a line about a goth girl who looks like she cries black eyeliner, and how Sam is OBSESSED with coffee - the humor just feels dated, and Sam talked like that pretty much throughout the entire book.
The

plot line with the homunculi

was bizarre to me, as if the book was in two separate genres at once (family trauma horror vs

fantasy horror

), but I DID really like the way the Underground Children were integrated and foreshadowed.
Overall, A House With Good Bones had an awesome title and intriguing premise with some interesting action scenes, but just didn’t end up being my cup of tea.
(On a much lighter note, I may have missed a lot of cultural references, too, not being from the south myself, but Sam is so wrong about Cheerwine, it’s really yummy)

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