Man, Fuck This House

Great title for a book, not as great a story.

Thought it was a little boring at first. Ending was a little sad, but the plot twists were neat.

This was a quick little haunted house book. It takes a little too long to get started, I noticed a few annoying typos, and the Damien character did not work for me but overall I had fun.

”..the dividing line betwixt adult and child was simply how self serious one was. Children thought the moon was made of cheese; adults believed in more complex but equally silly things, like government. Everything was one big joke.”

To be honest, I picked up this book because of the title.

This is about a family who recently moved town. Since moving in, strange things started happening. It is the mom's dream home, but is it really?

This book takes haunted house to the next level. It's not scary though, it bordered on comical but not funny. With that said, It's still entertaining and it's a quick read only 158 pages long.

I enjoyed Damien, the youngest child's character. He reminded me of Stewie from Family Guy. The way he wanted to trick his mom and he seemed demonic in a certain way with his pranks. 

The start of the book was promising, but as the story unravelled it just did not live up to my expectations. 

Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman is a fun horror comedy book inverting typical haunted house tropes in an examination of both the genre and family dynamics. It would be easy enough to describe this fun romp as a “popcorn read” about a family that moves into a haunted house, but blended with humor are genuine moments of shock and horror that invite the reader to confront the violence and warped nature of our world. Asman has composed a book that is delightfully conversationally easy to read, while still capable of surprising the reader. The story relies a bit on “fairytale logic” but is nevertheless a compelling story. And what a title! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What a fantastic take on haunted house tropes! I loved the story and the way it was told. Very glad I picked this up. 10/10 would recommend

This book should be a movie. Such a great, fun time. It was very difficult to stop reading and go do other adult stuff, so if you pick this book up, make sure you have a few free hours.

Brian Asman's story is bonkers! I love haunted house stories, and to be honest, I loved the title of the book too so I said ‘how bad it could be' before I started. This wasn't what I expected at all. The whole thing is crazy, shocking, have some interesting twists and turns... Pure fun.

It was a wonderful book to end the year. I would absolutely recommend giving it a chance.

For all that it is imperfect, I'm really glad I read this. It introduces some truly novel and fun ideas to the haunted house genre. (And answers the question “why don't they just leave” in a daring and remarkable way!) Plus the introduction of the specter (most specifically, its exit - I'll say no more) was wonderfully unique, Weird, and unsettling!

This could qualify as horror, comedy horror, or bizarro fiction. It takes the age-old concept of the haunted house and tries some cool new things with it. While most of the supporting characters range from pure trope (but with an entertaining, winking embrace of their tropiness) to a completely over-the-top creepy child, daughter Michaela comes across more as a real person, and main character Sabrina is fully fleshed out and sympathetic, even among the absolutely looney events of the plot.

The writing quality was good - I found myself highlighting key passages and frequently chuckling at clever phrasing. However, it was hampered by some missing content (at one point there's reference to an incident with a dead mouse in a cabinet that never occurred, we're not told what state the story is set in, which seemed like a deliberate decision, until it was mentioned in the last chapter, and suchlike) and some typos/mistakes. I think with better editing, this would have been a solid 4-star read. So 4 stars for the ideas and general writing quality, 3 stars for the finished e-book product, which may involve some editing mistakes and/or problems with conversion to a Kindle e-book, and so I don't think it's fair to lower my official rating.

All in all, this had me asking “what the fuck did I just read?” in the best way