Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

91 reviews

johnnalasswell's review

dark medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death and Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Child death, Self harm, and Medical content

haileyhardcover's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

How to Sell A Haunted House tells the story of Louise and her brother, Mark, who are grappling with the sudden, violent death of their parents… and all of the many secrets they left behind. This is more than a horror story. It’s about grief, complex family relationships, generational trauma, secrets, and puppets. 

So much about this book surprised me in the best way. I wouldn’t say it was scary, per se, but it definitely made my heart race! Multiple times, my jaw dropped, my eyes bulged, and I pterodactyl-screeched at what I was reading. There is another chilling surprise around every corner, and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Murder, and Gaslighting

Minor: Self harm, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

lisette_eponine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.25

Not my favorite Hendrix, but a very interesting story. There were several jump scares, and quite a bit of body horror. While the overall theme was good, the pacing was a bit off. It felt like the momentum stalled a few times. I did love that the chapters were centered around the five stages of grief. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Mental illness, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

timelord10'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? 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: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Mental illness and Self harm

Minor: Medical content

andyandnormski's review

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

2.0

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

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

Minor: Violence

honeybeewitched87's review

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

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

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

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

hmetwade's review

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

amhud1030's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Medical content, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

bg_oseman_fan's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

this book was not what i was expecting based on the title. I initially put it down part way through, but ended up picking it back up and reading to the finish. The writing of the action scenes was not very engaging. I found the attempts to create tension really repetitive such that the twists never really grabbed. as horror, this book didn’t get me. as a story about trauma and intergenerational relationships, i was hooked. 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Child death, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, and Alcohol