Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

55 reviews

carriepond's review

dark funny tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Shortly after How to Sell a Haunted House opens, Louise finds out that her parents have died and she has to leave her daughter Poppy with her ex to fly across the country to attend her parents' funeral and get their affairs in order. Unfortunately for Louise, this means forced proximity to her brother, Mark, with whom she has a strained relationship (which we get much more detail on as the novel progresses) and Pupkin, one of her mother's many creepy puppets occupying her childhood home as the embittered brother-sister duo attempt to clean it out to get it ready to sell. Well, as it turns out, the puppets and dolls are more than creepy and the house is haunted, so buckle up, Mark and Louise-- not only do you have to deal with years of family baggage, but you also need to watch your backs (really, watch all your body parts!) because Pupkin is about to play, play, play! Kakawewe!

I love haunted house books, and this one has many of the things I love-- the tension building, the creepy occurrences that characters shrug off while the reader gets increasingly freaked, and the deeper meaning. Here, Hendrix used the haunted house vehicle to explore inherited trauma, family dysfunction, and grief. The horror parts reminded me of an adult version of R.L. Stine's Night of the Living Dummy, which I was totally into as a kid. And it made me laugh so many times at the absurdity. The pacing was a bit off for me and there were a few things about the how of the haunting that didn't come together for me completely, but I really identified as I watched Mark and Louise's dynamic play out and the frustration of the characters as they dealt with family secrets and family members unwilling to face the past head-on.

I had fun reading How to Sell a Haunted House, bottom line.  It was stupid, but in a funny way that made me laugh fairly often. It was also a tense and sometimes gory haunted house story that explored themes that resonated with me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Self harm and Fire/Fire injury

glutenfreemaggie's review

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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book FR terrified me I almost didn’t keep reading but I’m glad I did it was fascinating 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

ggreen1379's review

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Grief, Car accident, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism and Fire/Fire injury

samburkhouse's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Gore, Vomit, Medical trauma, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Minor: Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Abandonment, and Alcohol

rowancdewit's review

challenging dark funny sad tense fast-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

4.0

I’ll be real! I’m not a big horror novel girl, I haven’t read many other horror books, so I don’t really know what to judge it off of… but I read this in a DAY. I couldn’t put it down. I kept saying “okay, after this chapter, I’ll be done for the day.” And that didn’t happen until the end of the book.

Warning, there are a few bits of the book that were a liiittle too much for me. (Violence, weird descriptive spooky things) But everytime those scenes happened, I’d get a tight “oof” in my gut, thinking to myself “Okay, I gotta skim this.” And then the next scene would be something absolutely so dramatic that would just make me laugh and say, “is Hendrix even serious right now?”

It’s so dramatic, but it’s a story that feels like it KNOWS it’s dramatic and far fetched and presses into that. Truly, feels like an adult version (bcuz the characters are in their 40s) of a Goosebumps book.

I 100% could see this being made into a film. And the 4 stars is 100% for Hendrix’s writing, which is just fun and silly and comedic and truly good enough that I could FEEL every ounce of discomfort that Hendrix wanted me to feel in the tense moments. The pacing was amazing, the delivery of everything was so great, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

If anyone asked about reading this, I definitely would say “don’t take it seriously, just buckle in for the ride.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Self harm, and Death of parent

Moderate: Murder and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcoholism, Cursing, Grief, and Car accident

shannonbauchat's review

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Car accident, and Gaslighting

Minor: Gun violence

lovelymisanthrope's review

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

I was originally saving this book to read during peak spooky season in October, but I could not resist picking it up during Summerween.
"How to Sell a Haunted House" follows Louise, a single mom to a beautiful, young daughter. Louise left her life in Charleston behind for a new life on the west coast, and she hardly looks back. Especially because she has a very strained relationship with her younger brother, Mark. Louise feels like her parents favored Mark and always made his life easier, and Louise is resentful. One night, completely out of the blue, Mark calls Louise to inform her that both of their parents were killed in a car accident. Now, Louise and Mark have to decide together what to do with their parents' home, filled to the brim with puppets that haunted their childhoods.
Prior to reading this novel, I was quite ambivalent towards puppets, but now, I am kind of weary. These puppets are so unsettling, and especially the fact that there are so many in one home. Learning how much their mom loved one particular puppet, Pumpkin, makes the story all the more unsettling.
One of my favorite aspects of this book was the brother sister dynamic between Louise and Mark. Their relationship is very strained, and it is not too far off to say that they really hate each other at the beginning. I even really empathized with Louise in the beginning because Mark seemed like such a wreck of a human being. But the more I learned about the story and the more I learned what Louise did not know, made me really grow to enjoy Mark as a character, and feel badly for him. I ended up really rooting for them to work together and mend their relationship.
As with all of Grady Hendrix's books, this story is unsettling and has some very graphic scenes. There is one particular scene involving a needle that I cannot erase from my brain, no matter how much I try. I really enjoyed this story, and I will forever pick up Grady Hendrix's titles in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Pregnancy

ninahuynh's review

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.75

 Been wanting to read Grady Hendrix book after hearing all the hype around his writing and around this particular book, and I gotta say, it delivered! The gore. The blood. The puppet. It has you on your   toes while also wanting to curse the curse’d. The only thing I have issue with is

why do the parents, especially the mom, blame Freddie’s death on Nancy when them parents were the one leaving a seven-year-old child to look after her five-year-old brother? They should have also seen how they were also at fault.

Generational trauma, man. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Murder and Fire/Fire injury

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-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? No

3.0

What a VERY weird and creepy AF book! It was bizarre, and puppets have always creeped me out! But I did like the twist with the puppet. I HATED the MCs for the book's first quarter, especially Mark, but he improved once the book got going. I would not recommend eating while reading this book as it gets gorey at parts and pretty violent as well. Pumpkin got extremely annoying at parts.  Overall, it was an okay book, that did keep me engaged. It was better than the other book of his I read which I DNF'd.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, and Car accident

Minor: Animal death, Child death, and Gaslighting

bookishcookiemonster's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

3.0

As far as horror stories go, it qas predictable, but still unnerving and some moments were definitely downright terrifying. 
I enjoyed it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gun violence