hookerkitty 's review for:

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
3.5
challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
I feel like this should’ve gone through another one (or two) rounds of editing. I wish I had borrowed this as an ebook so I could do a search to see how many times the word “said” was used, bc it seemed like 85-90% (at least) sentences where a conversation was happening between 2+ characters, the sentence ended in “[character] said.” This is already a pet peeve of mine when they just do that instead of using a different descriptor, but listening to it as an audiobook made it even more maddening. Like, I had to take breaks when there were long conversations bc it was driving me bonkers. It def reduced my enjoyment of reading (well, listening  to) this book. 

Along with that, there’s some pretty glaring plot holes.
One of the bigger ones - she describes how she’s getting attacked both by Pupkin and Spider. Pupkin took a chunk out of her leg, he hit her in the lower back, hit her skull, and she messed up at least one shoulder while defending herself (among other things). Spider, with his mouth full of razor teeth, bit her ankle and shook her leg like mad. Yet she could still walk on it. And when she was in the hospital, they stitched up her head but nothing else. Unfortunately since this is an audiobook I can’t do a search to find exactly what was said, but with how graphic the mauling of her leg was described, I’m surprised she even had an ankle/foot left, let alone being able to walk on it at all. And what about her eye‽ It’s not like this took place over a long period for them to somewhat heal. 

And what about Ian‽ How did she tell him she took their daughter out of state without permission, and then she had to be hospitalized there? I don’t think we heard from him again after the day she first got back (which, dude, she just got back from dealing with both of her parents dying, pissed herself, and attacked her daughter, is practically begging you to leave - stop trying to get your dick wet you fuckin twat). I find it hard to believe he wasn’t trying to call to talk to either of them and/or come over to see either of them. Also, the hospital would’ve seen all the cuts and bruises - how was CPS not notified‽ What story did they give them? Why were police and search and rescue at their house when she woke up? Who told them about the body? How was that resolved?


There’s just sooooo many unanswered questions. This def needed multiple more rounds of editing to patch up all those holes and say something besides “[character] said” at the end of most of the lines of conversation. Plus the characters kept making soooo many dumb decisions. 

I liked most of the rest of it and loved all the icky gore, and it made me both cry and laugh, but the above things just kept knocking it down for me. I’m not going to completely avoid future work by this author, but I’m not running out to get more either. But I’ll def make sure I borrow an ebook (or real one), so I won’t suffer as much through the convos in case that (lazy) writing happens again. 

Just checked my notes and can’t believe I totally forgot about this - if I showed up to something and the person at the door said “come in, everyone’s out back making penises” I would instantly fall in love too 😆
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