Reviews

The Agony House by Cherie Priest

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withthebanned's review against another edition

4.0

The Agony House was so great. I loved how there was a story within a story, it added to the entire depth of the novel. I liked Denise, and loved how her parents were not "absent parents," their relationship, especially with her stepdad, was very endearing. It is no surprise that my favorite parts of Agony House were the creepy bits! I loved the New Orleans setting and enjoyed traipsing about the old house with Denise. Recommended.

rachelhelps's review against another edition

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4.0

This YA/middle-grade novel tells a story about a girl, Denise, who discovers a comic book manuscript in the attic of the old house she just moved into. When she reads parts of the comic book, readers get to see it too. I was intrigued by the experimental format of the book, which was exciting. I was expecting there to be some visual clues to the ghost mystery in the comic book, but without having more visual information on the house and characters from another source, that wasn't really possible. I guessed the mystery about halfway through, which made me feel like a smarty pants.

The setting is suburban New Orleans and mentions great floods (from Hurricane Katrina, apparently). I appreciated having a setting in a city other than New York. Denise is white, and her family moves into a black neighborhood. A young black girl accuses her of gentrifying, but Denise's own poverty and natal origins in the city save her from being condemned as a gentrifier. She easily befriends the girl's cousin, and then the girl herself. I liked how Denise's poverty felt pressing, but thinking back on it, it never actually made her go hungry or prevented her from hanging out with her friends. It affected Denise's thoughts about money, but not her ability to be generous with her friends. In the end, Denise's parents promised to use local labor in remodeling the house, which felt like a trite way to end the racial tension. I am glad the book addressed racism, but that wasn't central to the mystery of the house's ghosts, so it felt tacked on. I think a better side-story would have been addressing unspoken rules or censorship in publishing today, since the Comics Code Authority's regulations were important to the ghost story.

Denise used Wikipedia in her research, and I appreciated the acknowledgement of Wikipedia's importance in any weird internet search, since I edit Wikipedia frequently. I was touched by the part where she found a woman's full name via a Wikipedia page, even if Wikipedia editors themselves weren't credited.

lizwuestefeld's review against another edition

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2.0

DNF

maxthedinosaur's review against another edition

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3.0

This book was pretty good, the beginning is a little slow for my taste but I absolutely adore the ending and the fact that author makes the texts/emails/notes different from the normal writing to help separate things. And the inclusion of pages of the comic is wonderful, it really helps immerse yourself into the story. Overall the story was fairly good, like I said it was a little slow at the beginning but it really picked up around the middle of the book. The characters were great, I feel like they all had a lot of depth to them. The only reason I'm giving this book 3 stars is just because of how slow it was, and it wasn't that engaging to me until around the middle to last quarter of the book.

pn_hinton's review against another edition

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3.0

This was just an 'okay' book. When I heard about it from the Hey Ya podcast and heard it was mixed media I was expecting a more even mix of graphic novel and traditional one and maybe eve having some instructions to 'pause here and listen to this song'. Seeing that it was mostly prose wasn't a deal breaker but it was a little bit disappointing. The story itself wasn't bad but it wasn't that unique and the characters weren't as fully developed as they could be. And to say it was like that because it was YA is a disservice because there are tons of YA thriller, horror, and suspense from today and even years past that blow this one out of the water on all three of those genres. While enjoyable, it just wasn't a strong story.
Despite what other reviews might say, I had no problem with Denise as the main character. Truth be told she was actually a lot more polite and courteous than most of the ones that I've read about in years past. She actually handled being uprooted her senior year a lot better than most teenagers would have and maintained a respectful tone to her mother. I also liked that she had a good relationship with her stepfather rather than the typical combat that normally happens between those two types of characters. The people that became her friends were interesting, even if they were borderline stereotypes.
But that also was the other problem; with this book being mainly prose, there wasn't a lot of character development that was done when the opportunity was there. For example it got old fast her adamant her mother was about her going to Tulane versus the University of Houston. Even none withstanding that U of H is my alma mater is the fact that, even with the out of school fee on the tuition, it's a helluva lot cheaper than Tulane despite any scholarships that Denise might have gotten. You didn't learn a lot about her friends or why the break up with her ex was so bad since it was mentioned as a story hook but then it was left behind. I wanted to know more about everyone , even the characters that I didn't like, and didn't get a whole lot of substance. It would be one thing if the graphic and the prose were half and half but again, the prose ended up being a majority of the book. And while the mystery was interesting enough, it just wasn't enough to make this one a stellar one for me.