Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - How to Sell a Haunted House

How to Sell a Haunted House starts with Louise returning home for her parents funeral. She is forced to cooperate with her younger brother, Mark, who Louise thinks has taken advantage of everything their parents ever gave him, and has never been held accountable.

I thought this dragged, especially in the middle. There is a point where everything could be wrapped up, but then surprise, all is not what it seems. The second ending is much better, and needs everything that comes before to set it up, but I thought we could have gotten there more quickly. Typically, I don't find books to be scary and puppets don't do it for me either, but by the end Pupkin was unsettling, and what Mark and Louise go through is definitely disturbing.

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ladyinverse's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

really really well done! I just wish some of the horror scenes weren't so.. visceral. 🥲😭

I will now be further disturbed by puppets and anything of the uncanny valley thanks Grady 🥲

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ggreen1379's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

2.75

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samburkhouse's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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rowancdewit's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny sad 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? Yes

4.0

I’ll be real! I’m not a big horror novel girl, I haven’t read many other horror books, so I don’t really know what to judge it off of… but I read this in a DAY. I couldn’t put it down. I kept saying “okay, after this chapter, I’ll be done for the day.” And that didn’t happen until the end of the book.

Warning, there are a few bits of the book that were a liiittle too much for me. (Violence, weird descriptive spooky things) But everytime those scenes happened, I’d get a tight “oof” in my gut, thinking to myself “Okay, I gotta skim this.” And then the next scene would be something absolutely so dramatic that would just make me laugh and say, “is Hendrix even serious right now?”

It’s so dramatic, but it’s a story that feels like it KNOWS it’s dramatic and far fetched and presses into that. Truly, feels like an adult version (bcuz the characters are in their 40s) of a Goosebumps book.

I 100% could see this being made into a film. And the 4 stars is 100% for Hendrix’s writing, which is just fun and silly and comedic and truly good enough that I could FEEL every ounce of discomfort that Hendrix wanted me to feel in the tense moments. The pacing was amazing, the delivery of everything was so great, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

If anyone asked about reading this, I definitely would say “don’t take it seriously, just buckle in for the ride.”

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horizonous's review against another edition

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I was just so bored.

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