A House With Good Bones

A House with Good Bones is about an insufferable protagonist who passively floats through the story drinking boxed wine and eating pizza while talking about bugs. Okay, maybe I'm being a little unfair. I really wanted to like this book but this protagonist made me wish she'd disappear and the story would be told from her mother's perspective instead.

For a story that's about generational trauma, the person who experienced most of that trauma is gone from the plot most of the time and instead, we are left with Sam, who spends most of the book trying to pretend nothing supernatural is happening. I get that denial is a normal reaction, but did she really have to be in denial until basically the very end of the book?

There are a lot of things I could tear into this book over but I'm just going to approach Sam's character “arc”. Aka, there is none. Sam never changes throughout the entire story. When she has her final showdown with her grandmother, the way she “defeats” the old hag is basically by saying “you should have bullied me over my thesis, not my weight, cause I don't care I'm fat!” which is great and all but we already knew Sam didn't care about body image. It just made that whole final confrontation so lame. If we'd seen Sam slowly come to appreciate her body over the story, it would have been way more impactful.

Or better yet, make Sam's mother the protagonist, since she actually had a character arc.

Sorry, this book is just not for me. I couldn't stand the quirky attitude. I couldn't stand the humor. I doubt I'll pick up a book from this author ever again.