Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

74 reviews

startjpw23's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This books stars Sam (short for Samantha). She is a 32-year-old archaeoentomologist. She studies insect remains in digs. During the latest dig that Samantha was working on, human remains were discovered. The dig was stopped while the issue was sorted out. As this could take months, and Sam only had one other small source of income, she moved in with her mother. Her mother owns the house that was previously owned by Sam's grandmother. Sam lived in this house with her grandmother and mother while she was growing up. At the beginning of the story, as Sam arrives at the house, there is a vulture on the mailbox. Sam quickly becomes concerned that her mother is behaving strangely. She has lost a lot of weight. She is skittish. She has made changes to the house that Sam doesn't understand. Strange things start to happen. Sam's grandmother was a strict, not very nice person. Sam has some not so fond memories of her time growing up there. As does her brother, who also is concerned about the behavior of their mother. There are a bunch of rose bushes of different varieties in the backyard. They are flourishing. Sam notices that there are hardly any bugs on the rose bushes. There should be a lot of them. The book talks about the family drama between Sam's grandmother and Sam's mother and between her grandmother, herself, and her brother. I thought the book did a great job gradually revealing what is going on. Sam has an amusing sense of humor. As a scientist, Sam is resistant that what she is seeing is actually real. The latter part of the book was thrilling and very tense. Sam is a great, realistic heroine. I found the supporting cast interesting. I recommend this to anyone who wants to read a horror novel with an appealing heroine, an interesting supporting cast, some family drama, horror aspects that are gradually revealed, and a tense, thrilling exciting conclusion.
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woolerys's review against another edition

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

3.75

I laughed at many of the one-liners; I found the characters very likable (with one obvious exception); I thought the plot was fairly predictable but it did go a little farther off the deep end than I was expecting! Loved having an entomologist—sorry, an archeoentomologist—for a protagonist, and I loved the vultures.
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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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

5.0

This was soooo creepy and 110% a horror book, all the bug stuff!! Eek!! Obsessed with how such a complete novel was started and ended in such a short amount of time, this author is slowly becoming a fave (I also love the new covers that have come out) 
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juan_adhd_reading's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A

5.0

If I discovered anything about myself this year is that I'm a sucker for hunted house stories. I adore T. Kingfisher! This book was so creepy and wonderful. As with "What moves the dead" and fungi, in this story, I learned a lot about bugs and roses, and now I also have the irrational fear that my grandmother will hunt us after death to nag us about our eating habits and the gnarly states of our rooms, lol. Anyway, if you loved Alex Easton you will also love Sam Montgomery! Kingfisher has a knack for writing the straight-headed sarcastic character that is suddenly hurled into a magical, haunted, terribly impossible scenario. It was an amazing book, highly recommend it!
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misanthropicvoid's review against another edition

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

5.0

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charlieeee's review against another edition

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

3.0

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emmalaya's review against another edition

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dark funny tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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honeygore's review against another edition

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

5.0

This book was gifted to me, it maybe wasn't something I would have picked out for myself but I really enjoyed it! I laughed out loud quite a few times. It was the perfect balance of creepy and funny. The mc was funny and relatable. The ending I definitely wasn't expecting, and I feel like it took a hard left turn from where I would've anticipated it going but it ended up being enjoyable! Huge fan of Hermes 10/10 good boi
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taideeznuts's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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wandering_not_lost's review against another edition

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emotional funny tense medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Please mind content warnings.  This book depicts an abusive person as one of the antagonists, and though it is treated as the horrible thing it is, anyone with issues around being raised in an emotionally abusive family might want to tread lightly in reading this book.

I'm not much of a horror reader anymore, but this book did a good job of hooking me in.  The book starts out quite slowly, with the protagonist going home, settling in, seeing things wrong, and then very eventually it starts ramping into seeing Creepy Stuff happening.  It's a slow build, and several points I thought it was too slow.  The protagonist's POV doesn't really help, since she is funny and wry but totally unaware that she is in a Gothic horror novel, if you know what I mean.  We spend a lot of time listening to her internal monologue about the possible reasonable reasons that Creepy Things might be happening, when in reality you know right from the start that none of those things are true, and it almost comes across as...wasting the reader's time?  But, I continued on on the strength of the characters and wasn't disappointed.  Once stuff hit the fan in the last quarter, it was unputdownable and honestly quite emotional.
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