She Is a Haunting

I did not like the narrator's performance. Consistent mispronounced words and really the wrong/irritating intonation. It's extremely rare for me to dnf even books that I hate but I just can't with this Bad narrator on a story that is not gripping me at all. 

oh, i just don't know about this one. this was a book club read for spooky month, it didn't keep my interest enough for me to finish it before the meeting, and then book club meeting came and went, and i still took forever to finish it afterward. this was disjointed (at first i thought it was the audiobook narration and swapped to hard copy, but no, it was the choppy and overly convoluted writing), and weird shit would happen without giving me a reason to care why. so there's a racist old white lady haunting the house, and all the food is rotting on purpose, and colonialism is bad, and the MC is bi and closeted, cool. i guess we're supposed to root for the MC to make it out of there intact? was that it? if we were supposed to have takeaways about rekindling family connections among the various threads in the novel, that was not executed well.

Another point in the “I should read more Viet authors” column. I enjoyed everything about this. The slow burn, the uncertainty of what exactly was happening, the relationships between Jade and her family members. The only thing that kept from being 5 stars was Florence. She never grew on me. The Ghost Bride bonus chapter was probably my favorite part of the book.

*2.75 rounded up

The family in this is complicated and so are their goals. The family history and the house history are complicated. It is hard to know who to trust including Jade sometimes. I liked that part well enough, but the body horror and bug horror really set this book apart. Once I even had to read a part aloud because I had to let someone else know how gross that part was.

According to my records, I started this on January 17th and it's now February 3rd. This is wild to me because it feels I've been struggling with this book for at least a month. 

I was excited to read this for various reasons. I DO judge a book by it's cover, and this is a gorgeous cover. (Even now, I have to say the cover matches the book well.) I love haunted houses and a gothic vibe. I like interesting family dynamics. I was stoked to see those elements in a story set in Vietnam. 

And I loved a short story from this author in the “Night of the Living Queers” anthology! I still think it's a great story, but I wonder if the short nature made me okay with mysterious elements and unanswered questions. 

“Haunting” delivered on a lot of parasitic creepiness, and I loved reading about Jade's relationship with her sister, Lily. Jade had a complicated relationship with her father, and carries anger toward him but also guilt at something she told him, and I liked the idea of that. Jade is also exploring her same sex attraction, and that's an appreciated element. The book had terrific ongoing reminders of the costs and oppressiveness of colonization. These are things I want to read.

But the writing just didn't get me to where I expected to be. I just didn't love the execution. I wanted more scenes with the sister and father. More clarity on what was going on. Jade seemed to make leaps in understanding that didn't make sense to me based on what she would/should know. I pushed through on this one a little bit because I want to prioritize diverse horror this year and I felt I needed to read this one in particular. 

I recommend this to fans of gothic stories/haunted houses, that are creeped out by bugs and parasites, that want a setting that is a little less common in combination with these tropes and who want what that element lends, and certainly to people who like these things and read diversely. 

I'm glad I read it. It brought enough that I know will stick with me. I think it might be influential for what it does. Because the pages didn't turn themselves/my interest wasn't fully engaged, I think I'll play it by ear on future titles by Trang Thanh Tran. I really did like the story (Nine Stops) in Night of the Living Queers. 

3.5 stars.

This story was fine. I was expecting to like it a little more tbh. It started out great but the ending sort of lost me.
Overall enjoyable and would recommend if you are interested in the concept of haunted houses.

3.75 stars

this book was kinda hard for me to get through, the ‘ghost' of sorts didn't make a lot of sense for me and i was struggling to understand why the mc was interested in the love interest

I'm not a fan of horror usually, so this isn't my type of book. My personal feelings ehhh 3-3.5 stars, but giving it a bump because I know I'm not the target audience and I'd still totally recommend this to people. It had some awesome lines and the writing style is rather lyrical/flowery at times so it everything becomes creepier and more unsettling.

Truly, Melanie's review is exactly what I'd like to say about this book.
There is a lot to love. It has great concepts, great prose, great themes. I'll definitely check out more by this author in the future.

I love stories about hauntings - houses, people, nature - if it's haunted, I will read it. She Is A Haunting is a beautifully written story about colonialism, self-discovery, and trauma and how it manifests in a physical structure, but also in the people that occupy it. The author does a great job of meshing past and present together to create a vivid and moving novel. I really, really enjoyed this and found the supernatural elements to be just right. After reading Piñata and being disappointed, I needed something good and I'm so glad that I picked up She Is A Haunting! If you like haunted place stories, this is for you.

This is a pretty solid YA haunted house story. There are some really effective scares in here and I loved the Vietnamese setting, but sometimes feelings and character motivations got a bit lost in the flowery writing and the romance didn't really work for me.

I enjoyed the creepy feel of this story, but I felt the main character was designed to be complex by just checking off a bunch of boxes. Also could just be the narrator but ultimately the mc was boring and annoying.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for the e-arc!

Um. This was wild. There's a lot to unpack here. While I found some of it riveting, I found other parts unnecessarily confusing. I think part of the confusion is the author's intention to keep the reader off balance (achieved), but I did find myself wishing for a few more concrete “rules” to help me keep track of the plot and parse the multiple metaphors. A highlight for me was the relationship between Jade and her sister. Overall, not exactly my cup of tea, but there was some really great writing, content, and atmosphere that kept me reading. Would recommend for teens who can get swept away by a haunted house, an unreliable narrator, and insect-oriented body horror.

Oooh this was great! Definitely one to take your time with and not speed read. A great haunted house book and a fantastic debut!!