Reviews with content warning for Death - She Is a Haunting

Reviews tagging 'Death'

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

52 reviews

lunarexorcist's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

i thought this was a new adult book until like twenty pages in my bad. i was so let down jade was 17 and not... like... 22.

i cried at the last forty pages but then went "what. what? what???" until the end. unhinged. i cant decide if it was unhinged in a genius or stupid way, but i will say that

being horny for a ghost that is horny for you also in a toxic yuri way and also a "wow you are so repressed colonialism slash misogyny slash queerphobia is a hell of a thing huh"

is one of the more unique interpretations of "this house eats people" ive seen.

i think the fact everyone sucks so bad throws people off but that just made my chest ache with how real it felt. that was my dad. thats my eldest daughter trauma. im gonna lose it.

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clovetra's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.0

ok i had to pause to collect my thoughts on this.

i hate to say i did not have a good time.

look it feels illegal to give this a 1-star because;

a) the cover is too beautiful to rate it that low

b) i did enjoy the first 30% of this book!

it feels wrong to rate a book lower when i considered dnf’ing many times yet pushed through because i wanted to know how it ended & if it got any better. the fact i had that much interest is worth 2-stars to me. plus i really wanted to like this. REALLY wanted to like this. alas as u can see by my stars um…. i did not!

it was really hard to formulate my thoughts about this book simply because most of the time i had no fuckjng idea what was going on. like if you asked me for a summary i would probably skip a good 60% of the plot because i actually don’t know what was happening. i still don’t really know what happened by the end. like yeah i got what happened to ba but….. with cam & marion? lily? jade even? um. 😀

like even the chapter titles such as “heart”…. i assume it was the house? i cant even be sure.

i wouldn’t be surprised if it was a meta-commentary like “if you don’t understand this book it’s immersing you into being jade in this house” but…. cmon when i don’t even know what i don’t know i am not a happy camper.

that was honestly my main issue. i think if i knew what was going on i would’ve given this at the bare minimum an extra star. but like im gonna have to read other reviews to know what’s going on.

another gripe, which is a lot more minor mind you, is that this didn’t feel like a horror. it’s more like a thriller. but like nothing was really horrifying to me. bro i need more than just some bugs. the more horrific elements may have been lost on me because i had no idea what was going on!!!!!

my final gripe is that this was such a slow burn oh my god????? storygraph said this was medium-paced…… WHERE. i’m sorry this is not medium-burn this is a snail’s-pace-burn. not even saying that’s a bad thing! it’s just not my thing and if i knew it was a slow burn i wouldn’t have even read it!

idk man im really sad cuz i wanted to love this! otherwise i wouldn’t have pushed past like 30%!!!!!!!

i am hoping that trang thanh tran irons out these “kinks” in her newest book because it looks good. granted i did say that about this book and look where that got me but. IM HOLDING OUT FOR YOU TRANG THANH TRAN!!!!!!!!!!

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parkergarlough's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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torismazarine's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.75

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ember_is_gay's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

3.5

i did enjoy this, however around the 3/4 point i started getting lost with what was happening and it just got confusing. jade and florence were very cute and the ending did make me happy

very shortly after i read 'a house with good bones' which is such a similar book but i think done a little bit better which then made me reflect more on 'she is a haunting'. i originally gave this 4 stars but moved it down to 3.5. i really wanted to like this, but i think the commitment to making it horror (even YA) wasn't there, the love storyline seemed more important. the moments where the horror came in and was well written did captivate me, but the ended to soon and suddenly i was reading a different book. i genuinely think that either focusing on the horror theme more and leaving the love storyline would have been better. it felt like once jade and florence were together suddenly there was a half-horror storyline that needed wrapping up but with no way to do it, hence my confusion mentioned. if that love storyline had been left out and the focus was on horror it would have been a lot better. or even if it was just a YA romance/contemporary it would have been better. the two just didn't fit well here.

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