Reviews tagging 'Grief'

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

174 reviews

timelord10's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

3.5

This is my first Grady Hendrix book, and I loved the writing style. I'm not a big horror fan in general, but I'll definitely be checking out all of his other books. The only reason I'm rating it 3.5 stars is because there was a big part in the middle where I got bored, and I put the book down for a while. It just wasn't doing it for me for part of the book. However, I feel like I can't fully judge how good of a horror book this is because I don't have much to compare it to, but it definitely creeped me out at times. I think my favorite aspect of the book was the relationship between Louise and Mark. I loved how their bond grew over the course of the book.

It was also amazing how Grady Hendrix made you hate Pupkin the entire book, but at the end when you found out he was the ghost of Freddie, you still felt bad for him despite how terrible he had been. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Car accident, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Gore, Child death, Death, Violence, Cursing, Grief, Vomit, and Body horror

Moderate: Mental illness and Self harm

Minor: Medical content

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, Violence, Death of parent, Grief, Medical trauma, and Gun violence

andyandnormski's review against another edition

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

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

Minor: Violence

dbooknerd's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This book was creepy, this book was crazy, this book delivered. I actually lean more towards 4.25 or 4.5 stars. It has family secrets, family conflict, family forgiveness, and family love all wrapped around spookiness. It started a little slow at first but it continually builded with excitement and terror. I don’t want to give anything away, but it will have you looking different at old family homes and all that comes with them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Gore, Death, Grief, and Vomit

Moderate: Blood

oktrouble1401213's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

2.75

I really liked the idea of this book, it felt really fresh and unique. However, something about the execution of it made it difficult for me to get through. I felt the second half dragged on a lot. The first half was a great time and the ending was alright, but this is definitely my least favourite Hendrix book so far. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Car accident, Child death, and Body horror

honeybeewitched87's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Pregnancy, Grief, Medical content, Blood, Cursing, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Alcohol, Death of parent, Violence, and Car accident

sarah984's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

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

2.5

I enjoyed parts of this, but I always want to like Grady Hendrix's books more than I end up doing. This was way too long and felt like it spent a lot of time spinning its wheels, the characters felt like they were mostly acting however it was needed to keep the plot moving, and a few plot points strained credulity even keeping in mind it's a horror novel.

The anarchist puppet collective putting on a show critical of the Bush admin in the immediate post 9/11 era to third graders and then a group of people dressed as clowns with a puppet trash one of the teachers’ houses and no one ever reacts to this or talks about it?? This would have been bigger than the killer clown craze in 2016.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Ableism, Car accident, Gore, Violence, Fatphobia, and Medical content

Minor: Vomit, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, and Self harm

eliasaurus's review against another edition

dark funny tense fast-paced

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

5.0

If I could give this book 10 stars I would. This was outstanding from start to finish. Hendrix goes for his typical mixture of horror and humor, and really pulls it off; the different tones really play up each other. This book is funny, and it's also scary and creepy and, at times, disturbing.

It's a story about a haunted house, yes, but it's also about family, and, I think most fundamentally, it's about grief. It's about how "time only moves in one direction, no matter how hard we wish it wasn't so." A word of caution: maybe d n't read it right now if you've recently lost someone, or are dealing with a departed family member's estate or selling their house. I'm in the latter camp and the final paragraphs really destroyed me (in a good way, because the author really truly understands what it feels like, but boy did it hurt).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Body horror, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Child death

hmetwade's review against another edition

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

pam_'s review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Car accident, Gore, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Child death