Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

29 reviews

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

maggieoc_x's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

i love a camp demonic puppet moment.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Cursing, Self harm, Medical content, Stalking, Murder, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pregnancy and Alcohol

mx_harpstar's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Child death, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Minor: Self harm, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

major CW for creepy puppets/dolls

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

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

creepycrawlybookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

brizlee's review

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Genuinely made me scared of a puppet. Also loved the twist. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death and Death

Minor: Pregnancy

siobhanward's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I'm so torn about Grady Hendrix. I loved My Best Friend's Exorcism , but nothing has been as good before or since. This was very middle of the road for me. It felt like things dragged on forever - so much time was spent building up Mark and Louise, and frankly I could not bring myself to care about them. They were both just kind of shitty people. Not bad enough to outright remove them from your life, but I wouldn't be rushing to invite either of them out to dinner.

The main plot (once we got there) was cool - unfortunately, that was mostly just the last 150 pages. Once things got going, they moved quickly and really got interesting. Honestly, the last 50 pages changed the book from 2* to 3* read. If Hendrix could write everything as well as the last bit of this book, that would be amazing. Unfortunately, he spends a lot of unneeded time trying (unsuccessfully) to build a background.

Hendrix does get points for recognizing that puppets and dolls are creepy af and should not be tampered with.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Medical content and Pregnancy

jessthanthree's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, and Gaslighting

Minor: Sexual content, Excrement, and Pregnancy

chasingpages1's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Pregnancy and Alcohol