Reviews tagging 'Death'

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

52 reviews

chroniti's review against another edition

dark hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Eerie and creepy along with the struggles of a broken family and the scars of colonization. Finally, a Vietnamese-American horror with a bisexual main character for me, a bisexual Vietnamese-American woman to read.
The romantic subplot did not overtake the horror in this book and was able to fit neatly with the main character's story. 
The characters are flawed and very human.
The middle portion is slower-paced since there's more focus on the characters rather than the horrors, which I felt was important to put time aside to flesh out the characters and their dynamics.
This felt like watching a great horror miniseries in book form.
I-uh-I would not recommend reading this while you're eating...
Some of the things described in this book can be stomach-churning.
Great horror read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Murder, Death, and Racism

disnelyse's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Colonisation, and Racism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Death

Minor: Vomit and Car accident

uncreativeoops's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

The vibes were immaculate, which is pretty important for a gothic horror novel, and the author managed to create an eerie and tense atmosphere while also describing everything so aesthetically. The descriptions felt very... indirect? I sometimes had to reread parts because I wasn't sure what was actually happening but that is by no means a criticism; I adored the language. Plotwise however, I struggled a bit. Haunted houses only work if the characters have a good reason to be in them and not leave once, you know, they realize they might die. In this case, there were reasons for the main character not just going home, but they weren't strong enough for me. I got her motivations and I liked how her struggles with her family and her identity played out, but her behavior in the house was just ridiculous. And some of it seemed like it only happened to set up conflict between characters, the main thing that didn't work for me. Nearly every thing that characters got angry about was so obviously only there to create a shocking reveal and lead to an argument and some of the "dark secrets" I just straight up didn't consider as bad things. The romance also suffered from this.
My favorite thing however were the shorter horror chapters and how horror as a genre was used to discuss colonialism, racism, and sexism. Gothic horror has always been used to portray societal issues with supernatural metaphores and this was done so well here. I also have never read YA horror before and was pleasantly surprised how well these two can be mixed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Abandonment, Colonisation, Racism, Violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Blood, Animal death, Medical content, Addiction, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Alcohol, and Misogyny

Minor: Homophobia, Biphobia, Car accident, and Bullying

sarah_shelf's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Colonisation, and Racism

Moderate: Death, Gore, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment

Minor: Car accident

Body horror involving bugs & worms/larvae Parasites

khakipantsofsex's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Racism, Colonisation, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicide, Slavery, Homophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

sknappy1's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation

Moderate: Racism, Death, and Murder

Minor: Vomit

kingcrookback's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

This book would probably fit into the niche of creeping Gothic horror with generational themes of the likes of Mexican Gothic and What Moves the Dead. When Tran's writing was effective, her imagery was genuinely and viscerally unsettling. Ordinarily, the themes of generational trauma, queerness, colonialism and diaspora, and father-daughter relationships should have kept me hooked from page one.

The problem is, I found that Tran's writing was often not effective. Much of the time the figurative language and syntactical choices lacked the necessary undergirding of substance, which resulted in a murkiness that did not seem intentional and consequently just felt confused or unfocused. I understand that sometimes the intention was slipperiness and disorientation, and while that sometimes came across, its success was inconsistent. In fact, what this book did well - the creepy-crawliness, the imagery, the way it taps into the experiences that many American-born Vietnamese people share - made it even more of a frustrating read in the face of its shortcomings, including the underdeveloped side characters and the (occasionally) less-than-natural dialogue.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Colonisation, and Racism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Child abuse, and Death

Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Vomit, and Car accident

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

1.75

SO much going on all at once, and not balanced very well. I think I would have liked the different narrative elements individually or if they had been melded more effectively (because a haunted house that is so both literally and as a deeper allegory for the lingering legacy of colonialism -- if that is the intention -- is conceptually great), but it just feels like it's trying to be several different things mashed haphazardly into one. Super overwritten as well, and yet at the same time basically everything that should be shown is told and vice versa.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Classism, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Murder, Racism, Suicide, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Misogyny, War, Vomit, Homophobia, Biphobia, Bullying, and Sexism

Fungal/parasitic infection. Insects, insect death. Sleep paralysis.

cutiemuffin23's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Eating disorder, Genocide, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Biphobia, and Racism

bookcaptivated's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Body horror, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence

Moderate: Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Classism, Colonisation, and Blood

Minor: Grief, Homophobia, and Murder