A review by clovetra
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

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

2.0

ok i had to pause to collect my thoughts on this.
i hate to say i did not have a good time.
look it feels illegal to give this a 1-star because;
a) the cover is too beautiful to rate it that low
b) i did enjoy the first 30% of this book!
it feels wrong to rate a book lower when i considered dnf’ing many times yet pushed through because i wanted to know how it ended & if it got any better. the fact i had that much interest is worth 2-stars to me. plus i really wanted to like this. REALLY wanted to like this. alas as u can see by my stars um…. i did not!
it was really hard to formulate my thoughts about this book simply because most of the time i had no fuckjng idea what was going on. like if you asked me for a summary i would probably skip a good 60% of the plot because i actually don’t know what was happening. i still don’t really know what happened by the end. like yeah i got what happened to ba but….. with cam & marion? lily? jade even? um. 😀
like even the chapter titles such as “heart”…. i assume it was the house? i cant even be sure.
i wouldn’t be surprised if it was a meta-commentary like “if you don’t understand this book it’s immersing you into being jade in this house” but…. cmon when i don’t even know what i don’t know i am not a happy camper.
that was honestly my main issue. i think if i knew what was going on i would’ve given this at the bare minimum an extra star. but like im gonna have to read other reviews to know what’s going on.
another gripe, which is a lot more minor mind you, is that this didn’t feel like a horror.  it’s more like a thriller. but like nothing was really horrifying to me. bro i need more than just some bugs. the more horrific elements may have been lost on me because i had no idea what was going on!!!!!
my final gripe is that this was such a slow burn oh my god????? storygraph said this was medium-paced…… WHERE. i’m sorry this is not medium-burn this is a snail’s-pace-burn. not even saying that’s a bad thing! it’s just not my thing and if i knew it was a slow burn i wouldn’t have even read it!
idk man im really sad cuz i wanted to love this! otherwise i wouldn’t have pushed past like 30%!!!!!!!
i am hoping that trang thanh tran irons out these “kinks” in her newest book because it looks good. granted i did say that about this book and look where that got me but. IM HOLDING OUT FOR YOU TRANG THANH TRAN!!!!!!!!!!
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