Reviews with content warning for Death - She Is a Haunting

This book has a slow start mostly defined by Jade's resistance to settle into the haunted colonial villa and try to patch a broken relationship with her father while also trying to deny her desire for friendship - and more - from the beautiful Florence - that escalates into the creepy and bizarre slowly and steadily to a frenzied and blurry, sort of confusing ending.

Jade's a great character who feels out of place everywhere - she's not Vietnamese enough, not American enough, not gay or straight enough - and is at odds with her desire for a fresh start at college and a drive to protect her little sister and mother from the truth of their father's abrupt departure in the past. Her anger attracts the ghosts of the house to her in different ways, but nothing is really as it seems.

I enjoyed how real everything felt while also casting doubt as to the cause or problems of supernatural happenings. Jade sabotages herself at every turn and has trouble trusting the right people.

Overall, this was a great read -atmospheric, tense, with good use of horror movie tropes intertwined with the terrible realities of colonialism and tragic Vietnamese ghost stories.

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carolined314's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.75

Food and love and ghosts and control all intertwine in this book, which I found almost revolting and yet fascinating. The main character's queer journey kept me grounded even as the situation got worse and worse and then... wow.

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evelynyle_88's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

What a journey following Jade Nguyen and her imperfect family. There were so many things going on, She Is A Haunting really gave me creepy gory horror disturbing type of book. But, although this is quite disturbing, the whole story was perfect.

How she engaged with every ghosts and facts about the house, her relationship with Florence Ngo, Lily and her estranged father... it all captured in a perfect way. This book gave me chills from the very first chapter until the end.

The feels of it, the way Trang Thanh Tran described every situation in the house in detailed way... I love it! What an amazing debut, Trang! I love every second of it when I deep dive to Jade's story. Wish I could see the bonus chapter though! But, all okay. I love this book as a whole. My best read this month!

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modernmatilda's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

4.5

Things I love
-female character who aren't perfect and who's flaws and mistakes are a struggle
-books with covers featuring girls faces with flowers growing out of their mouths
-explorations on topic like what parents owe their children, what older siblings do to project their younger siblings and is it good, first vs second generation kids, cultural identify, belong/not belonging

This book was a wild ride with cottageGORE vibes that I treasure. But more than that, it was this gorgeous exploration of families, parents, multigeneration trauma, colonization, and ghosts. I don't think I understood everything, but I loved everything.

The dream/not dream scenes were wonderful because I did not know which parts were real and which ones weren't. The sleep paralysis creeped me the F out. The bug scenes were fantastically gorey but I think I needed more explanation.

I feel like this would make a fantastic book discussion choice and I'm so thankful to my local bookstore employee for recommending it.

Content Warnings

shadowspinner's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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sarah984's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

3.5

This is a pretty solid YA haunted house story. There are some really effective scares in here and I loved the Vietnamese setting, but sometimes feelings and character motivations got a bit lost in the flowery writing and the romance didn't really work for me.

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