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A review by jenpaul13
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
4.0
Haunting appetites consume those who come near a particular, and historic, house in Trang Thanh Tran’s She is a Haunting.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
Jade Nguyen’s summer trip to Vietnam with her family to visit her estranged father, Ba, who left his wife and three children in Philadelphia, is less a holiday and more an obligation negotiated with Ba in order to secure the necessary funds for her educational future; all she has to do is feign being part of a happy family for five weeks while he restores a French colonial house, Nhà Hoa, that his family once resided in in servitude. Throughout her life, Jade has developed a history of lying, mostly so that she might be accepted by others, which is why Ba and her sister, Lily, don’t believe her when she expresses the strange and frightening things she’s experienced in the house, such as an audible beat emanating from the walls, bug extremities in places they oughtn’t be, and beautiful bride ghosts who utter strange, yet direct, warnings. Determined to prove her experiences true and show Ba and Lily that the house is compelled by a harming and haunting presence, Jade works with Florence, the niece of Ba’s business partner, and decides to haunt the house to drive them from the building danger. While facing off against the ghosts of the house to save her family Jade also finally confronts the truths about herself, who she is and who she wants to be.
Within an atmospheric setting that conveys a creeping and strong sense of oppressive forces, both historical and physical, the narrative depicts, in an eerily consuming manner through sometimes disturbingly vivid images, the hungers and desires that feed the manipulation some exert on others. Told from Jade’s prickly teenaged perspective and interspersed with a handful of creepy chapters from the perspective of the ghostly house, both of which devolve toward the ethereal as events progress, the story addresses the concept of identity from a few lenses, including sexual, cultural, and familial; Jade and her family’s story provides a perspective of simultaneously being seen as “other” and as not being seen as “other” enough and how and in what way that plays a role in the formation and expression of identity while exploring the impact of colonialism – and in particular how it manifested in Vietnam – immigration, and the experiences that children of immigrants have in their birth country compared to the birth country of their parents. Many of the relationships shown throughout the story demonstrated a parasitic symmetry, which was interesting to see inform the decisions that characters made, which could be frustrating at times, and impact the interpersonal dynamics between characters.
*I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
Jade Nguyen’s summer trip to Vietnam with her family to visit her estranged father, Ba, who left his wife and three children in Philadelphia, is less a holiday and more an obligation negotiated with Ba in order to secure the necessary funds for her educational future; all she has to do is feign being part of a happy family for five weeks while he restores a French colonial house, Nhà Hoa, that his family once resided in in servitude. Throughout her life, Jade has developed a history of lying, mostly so that she might be accepted by others, which is why Ba and her sister, Lily, don’t believe her when she expresses the strange and frightening things she’s experienced in the house, such as an audible beat emanating from the walls, bug extremities in places they oughtn’t be, and beautiful bride ghosts who utter strange, yet direct, warnings. Determined to prove her experiences true and show Ba and Lily that the house is compelled by a harming and haunting presence, Jade works with Florence, the niece of Ba’s business partner, and decides to haunt the house to drive them from the building danger. While facing off against the ghosts of the house to save her family Jade also finally confronts the truths about herself, who she is and who she wants to be.
Within an atmospheric setting that conveys a creeping and strong sense of oppressive forces, both historical and physical, the narrative depicts, in an eerily consuming manner through sometimes disturbingly vivid images, the hungers and desires that feed the manipulation some exert on others. Told from Jade’s prickly teenaged perspective and interspersed with a handful of creepy chapters from the perspective of the ghostly house, both of which devolve toward the ethereal as events progress, the story addresses the concept of identity from a few lenses, including sexual, cultural, and familial; Jade and her family’s story provides a perspective of simultaneously being seen as “other” and as not being seen as “other” enough and how and in what way that plays a role in the formation and expression of identity while exploring the impact of colonialism – and in particular how it manifested in Vietnam – immigration, and the experiences that children of immigrants have in their birth country compared to the birth country of their parents. Many of the relationships shown throughout the story demonstrated a parasitic symmetry, which was interesting to see inform the decisions that characters made, which could be frustrating at times, and impact the interpersonal dynamics between characters.
*I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.