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jay_sy 's review for:

The Good House by Tananarive Due
4.0
dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

 The Good House by Tananarive Due is about a woman struggling with the loss of her son, only to realize than a mysterious entity from her grandmother's place could be the source of her present day woes.

Thoughts while reading:

-The story starts a little slow with a lot of characters introduced, but the author captures the atmosphere and the characters are sympathetic and compelling
-Poor Angela, losing everything just when she thought it was all coming together.
-I like the faint hints of mysticism. I’m curious to see what Corey and Sean ‘awoke’ on the property. I liked the way their friendship was introduced
-I feel like there’s a lot of different kinds of ways to portray horror. Sometimes, it’s about something being disgusting. Sometimes it’s about an interesting plot. And sometimes, it’s about bad things happening to very sympathetic characters, though I find it’s rare for me to like characters. Due manages to write some interesting and sympathetic characters and now I’m stressed out about bad things happening to them. The idea that you start to do bad things without realizing that you’re doing bad things is so disturbing to me. I’ve always been scared, in real life, of things that can cause you to lose your sense of self, like traumatic brain injuries or alzheimer's
-The scene with the thirteen year old girl and Tariq was messed up. But it’s fascinating (and horrifying) to see Tariq’s descent into darkness as he has taken over by the entity
-I feel so bad for Art and his family. They were so likable
-The history of the entities around Marie, her ancestors, and the land was really interesting
-I know that as a read, we have insights that characters don’t have, but Myle’s denial of what is going on in the Good House (despite seeing what’s happening in front of his eyes) is feeling too drawn out
-I’ve really enjoyed the rest of the book that built up the characters, their relationships, and their histories, but the climax feels like it’s going on for too long.
-After everything that Angela lost (basically everything), I wondered what would happen to her. But it looks like she got her happy ending. Still, I feel like I enjoyed most of the book but the climax was way too drawn out
 

The author's strengths lie in her characterization and her ability to create sympathetic characters. I only had some issues with pacing. Over all, I would give it a 4 out of 5