Reviews tagging 'Gore'

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

25 reviews

plumdustsuns's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I had typed an entire review but my phone died SMHHH 
Anyway. So: 
- turned up being a page turner for me
- evocatively beautiful writing and language even with horrific content 
- horror wasn’t too distasteful or so which is good for a coward like me 

Plot wise: 
- by the 200/250 page mark, the plot/incidents began to feel a bit repetitive. Jade goes to sleep, bad dreams, Jade wakes up, fights with dad. I remember I was sHOOK when her dad was digging out the skulls. I wish we had more of that/his hauntings and her seeing him do insane shit instead of just fixing the house and being a stubborn asshat 
- lily’s sleepwalking and everything being utilized more would have been cool as well. Using them to go somewhere clue wise and story wise and her being a bit more conflicted about the haunting as she too was being seeped into would have made the stakes feel a lot higher 
- I like Jade and Florence but I wish their adventures added more to the story/tightened the plot. Cam being jealous of Florence? Where’s more of that? Why only at the last moment? That would have been so fun and interesting. And seeing Cam’s queerness too in the flashbacks like come onnnn please would have added more to the bad marriage. Maybe her parents discovered her queerness and married her off which is why they don’t talk to her anymore. It could have paralleled Jade’s own fears about coming out and fleshed out their connection, made it more believable and even something to root for in ways 

Yeah. There was a lot of interesting content but they all meandered a lot and/or weren’t used to their full potential. Alma being there by the end was blah, we already had a colonizer presence with Marion. Halle didn’t feel too much of a great addition either as we never quite see her or have her back in again. 
I wish ‘what did she show you’ to Ba came way before and he showed Jade and we got more of his motivations and it added to his complexities and just the immigrant symbolisms the book was going for. He had so much potential than being just the ‘we’re never leaving’ bad guy and would have brought a lot of cultural weight and justified Jade’s empathy and forgiveness almost of his actions even more. ‘He never spoke about his family before’ WHAT IF HE DID NOW. I like that this was all triggered by his loss of his mother/homeland. We could have went into it more. Him and Jade and Lily could have all had shared psychosis/dreams from the insane food. Sigh. So much lost potential. And if the mom did come in earlier and hadn’t been allowed to leave for a bit? And the escape felt more necessary as pressing as it was all very ‘yeah alright she’s gonna burn down the house now’ without it feeling very consequential to me. 
I thought this was a solid almost 3 star read but the more I wrote this review and realized how much more could have been done, the madder I got and realized this was a 2 star read for me at best. But I did enjoy it in ways still. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Body horror, Gore, Gaslighting, Murder, Emotional abuse, Grief, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Confinement, Racism, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, and Slavery

parkergarlough's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Violence, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Mental illness, and Death

Moderate: Racism, Car accident, Misogyny, Grief, Gore, Lesbophobia, Murder, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

torismazarine's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Suicide, Car accident, Classism, Mental illness, Murder, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Cursing, and Xenophobia

Minor: Alcohol and Sexual content

moh_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Death of parent, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit

Moderate: Car accident, Death, Alcoholism, Grief, and Racism

Minor: Medical content and War

raynbowkitty's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

This book made me feel physically ill several times. Tough, but intriguing story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Slavery, War, Body horror, Xenophobia, and Racism

Moderate: Vomit, Mental illness, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, and Colonisation

Minor: Alcoholism and Death of parent

srcreads1's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Colonisation

Moderate: Racism

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

the_unquiet_librarian's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

This house isn’t just haunted, it has an appetite for its occupants.

Jade Nguyen leaves her home in Philadelphia with her younger sister to spend the summer with their estranged father. Ba has purchased a 1920’s French Colonial house in Vietnam where Jade’s great grandmother grew up in servitude. Nha Hoa, as the house is called, is to be a bed and breakfast and a home for the Nguyen family. He has also agreed to pay Jade’s college tuition if she stays the summer and creates a website for the B&B with his business partner’s daughter, Florence. Strange nightly occurrences, an abundance of dead insects, and the constant smell of rot plague Jade. Her father is adamant that the house is not haunted and the relationship between father and daughter becomes increasingly strained. 

When a ghostly presence warns her, “don’t eat”; she must find a way to protect her family from an unknowable threat and enlists the help of Florence. The longer they stay, the hungrier the house becomes and the seeds of fear bloom into paranoia. The house with its sinister past become a body, representing the parasitic nature of colonialism, creating a dark backdrop for the haunting. Vivid imagery bathed in Vietnamese culture and atmosphere is illuminated through eloquent language. Its verisimilitude is achieved through adolescent prose that capture the insecurities and concerns of a teenager contemplating the cost of college, sexuality, and cultural identity. Despite the narratives’ slow pace, the beguiling setting of this gothic horror is the true star and will leave the reader hungry for more. —Rebekah Palmer

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Content Warnings

Minor: Car accident, Gore, Vomit, and Toxic relationship

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.

chilivanilli28's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Body horror