How to Sell a Haunted House
Ratings275
Average rating3.7
How To Sell A Haunted House is an enjoyable, snappy horror that's both funny and frightening. Once the action starts its fast paced, with a chatty writing style that's easy to read. The relationship between the two main characters - Louise and her younger brother Mark, is well formed and Louise's love for her daughter shone through. There are some very surreal moments in this, which dampened down the fear factor for me but I still enjoyed the book.
Hated everything about this book. It was a book of grief. Went and spoiled the ending and glad I didn't. Just what?!
NOW THAT WAS A GOOD BOOK! Holy moly! I hated dolls and puppets before but I hate them even more now LOL. What a wild book but this is my first one of grady hendrix and now I'm just as hooked as I am to Riley Sager books. If you are looking for a good book to scare the crap out of you read this one!. The Audiobook is AMAZING bravo to the narrator
Interesting premise that quickly falls off a cliff. Really dull, annoying characters and oh so dragged out & boring.
Grady's typical blend of interesting characters, humour and effective set pieces. There were a couple of very unnerving sequences in this one but also some genuinely moving ones. Very good!
An ok read that delivered. I feel like it could perfectly be adapted to an american horror story season ( it has the right amount of dark humour and weirdness for it).
I think that the end was clearly visible like a mountain from the start of the story, but I liked the vibe the author has put in it
i really enjoyed this book. its spooky and haunted. i think this book might not be successful for people who arent afraid of dolls.
there was also a charming family element to this book which i really liked. it touched on grief somewhat, in a nice way.
at the 80% mark i found myself skipping entire paragraphs because i felt like the book was just 50 pages too long.
overall- it was a fun, funNY, and spooky read.
Con tanta narración innecesaria, esperaba que al menos me dieran el recuento de lo que ocurrió la noche de la muerte de los Joyner.
Fun and funny horror. It took a while to really get started, but once it did, it was pretty good. It's a little long and meandering in parts, which led to a definite drop in any suspense that got built up. Adding an extra half a star for the Audiobook version. Hearing Pipkin's voice upped the creepiness factor, for sure.
3.5
Haunted puppets aren't my fave. I didn't love either main character and I wish there was more from Mark's perspective. It felt very drawn out, especially in the second half.
I would have given this 5 stars but it was a bit of a struggle to get through the story at the halfway point; However I will say I will never look at puppets the same way again. This was definitely the first book I have ever read where the antagonist is a hateful deranged puppet thirsty for vengeance.
Ha estado bien, muchas cosas me han sorprendido pero sigue sin gustarme mucho el terror :(
i just love when a book finds me & i read it during a time in my life i happen to really need it
Urghh talk about overstaying your welcome! This book dragged on, it could have been 20% shorter and have the same effect. I didn't like the villain at all, but that was just personal preference. I was just annoyed when I got to 75% and wanted it to end.
A solid 3.49!
Grady Hendrix is a real South Carolinian who is expert at weaving Southern Gothic and weirdsies into each of his books. Every time I read one of his books, I am reminded of the 10 years I lived in Upstate SC.
The author also does a great job of creating individual characters that are reminiscent of real people. I wish we'd had even more of the aunts and cousins.
At first, I was annoyed by the endless sibling bickering; as we get further into the story and learn Mark's backstory, a lot changes. I can say I never really like Louise. But, maybe I'm not supposed to.
I had a hard time putting this book down! So, why not 4 stars? Having read a couple of other books by the author, I expected some gory sections. However, some of the gory sections didn't make much sense (getting hit by a hammer multiple times all over one's body or shelving falling on a person are not going to cause damage similar to shelves falling on a person.
I've been interested in reading this book since it was released earlier this year but it's not my go to genre so it was never high on my priority TBR so I am so glad that Destiny and I decided to buddy read it together because I really enjoyed it.
This was my first book by this author and I did go in being a little skeptical because everyone I saw talking about it kept saying it was ok but it wasn't their favorite book by him. Because of this I pretty much went in with little to no expectations and in the end it exceeded my expectations by a lot.
I can tell you now that my review isn't going to be for you if you're wanting to know how scary or creepy this book was because to me it wasn't either. I totally get why people would be creeped out by puppets and dolls but I've said this before on my blog things that are supposed to be scary or creepy just aren't for me. That goes for movies to. I find them to be more predictable and funny. While I would say this follows that predictable vein it was still a fun wild ride.
The book starts out with Louise getting a phone call from her estranged brother Mark. He's giving her the news that both her parents have died. Right from the moment that Mark is introduced I hated his character so much. Louise slowly started to get on my nerves after a while but luckily they both have a good bit of character growth throughout the book.
Louise and Mark both get bad vibes from the house but both of them won't admit it to the other one because of their animosity toward each other. Louise being so adamant about how there's nothing going on with the house is what started to get on my nerves after a while. They both just wanted to get in and get rid of everything as quick as possible but for Mark a lot of the stuff holds sentimental value for him and the house itself has other plans.
I did get a little teary eyed at one point in this book which I wasn't expecting at all since this is a horror book. Overall I really enjoyed this one and I can't wait to pick up something else by this author.
Taking a few pages out of Mike Flannigan's playbook, Hendrix excels with a funny, weird, and chilling haunted house story while dissecting generational trauma.
I enjoyed this book AND it helped me realise what I don't like when reading horror stories!
Pros: family themed horror, nice plot twists (even though at the end I anticipated some of them), good pacing, cursed object theme
My personal cons: too much explicit violence/brutality, drawn out action scenes where I couldn't really keep up with who was doing what where
I say these are my personal cons, because they were actually well written, I just realised that I enjoy the atmosphere and scenery of horror stories much more than explicit violence and gore in them. However if you enjoy horror stories, where you can read word by word how the enemy is trying to kill the protagonists in an action scene, then this is for you!
I still give it 4*, enjoyed it nevertheless