Reviews with content warning for Medical content - She Is a Haunting

Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

3 reviews

moh_reads's review against another edition

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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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uncreativeoops's review against another edition

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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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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.

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