Reviews - The Good House | The StoryGraph

1.07k reviews for:

The Good House

Tananarive Due

4.07 AVERAGE

eusteph's review against another edition

5.0

dark mysterious 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

Tananarive Due is slowly but surely becoming one of my favorite horror authors.

The amount of research that clearly went into crafting this story is simply amazing. The characters were believable, relatable, yet also magical.

I don't think I can say much about this book without spoiling it, but it fits the Fall/spooky season perfectly. It left me at the edge of my seat several times. I could have easily read it all in one sitting but life got in the way.

I will definitely be making it my mission to read everything by Tananarive Due in the near future.

shadeyc's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This feels like it crawls through the story, but by the end you definitely appreciate the slow insidiousness of it. I was sort of expecting more supernatural elements, but that's probably why this book feels more creepy, because it's all nasty parts of human nature brought to the fore.
Humans really are the worst.
That aside, the writing is beautiful, especially the descriptions/set up of the house and surrounding woods/area.

scicalis's review against another edition

4.25

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

laurarhds's review against another edition

2.0

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

moethesheep's review

4.0

For my first official horror read, The Good House was a journey (in the best way possible)! I was initially intimidated by the time jumps, but they were done so well and in such a responsible way. This book had my asking a million questions on the front end, but all of my questions were answered. The ending was not what I anticipated, but I preferred the written ending to the one I has assumed.

There are some trigger warnings readers should be mindful of:

Spoiler

suicide, racism, homophobia, mention of rape & sexual assault, drug use

kordidarling's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

triplebriiii's review against another edition

5.0

I kept wavering on the rating bc there are parts that I didn't particularly enjoy, but I'm fairly certain that is a me thing, and not a detraction of the book/story itself.

Really excellent characters. I didn't like them all the time but they always felt incredibly real (for good and for bad, I cannot stand the mind of a teenage boy 😩😩😩). Plot was excellent as well, and the pacing was superb.

Don't really have concrete words right now, so rambling thoughts here we go:

The fact that the whole curse started

bc white folks couldn't handle two POCs owning the beste house in the area and an arguable act of self defense that went too far

.

The commentary about motherhood and misogyny, the assumption that it was Marie who was the student and not John. Angela being forced to be the "bad cop" in her parenting with Tyreek. How the men in Angela's life - including her son - viewed her thru the lens of patriarchy and misogyny.

(On that note, men are trash a;sdlkfja;sldkf like literally not impressed with a single one and they all basically just made Angela's life more difficult lord have mercy.)

The symbolism behind Corey's demise being

a white woman's tears and false accusations of rape

The reliance on generational support.

Love the ending.