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A review by thewallflower00
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
5.0
So I’ve grown to love Grady Hendrix and his books. He just seems to have a knack for combining grody horror and nuttiness. Like Stephen King if he was fabulously gay.
This book is like his other ones — My Best Friend’s Exorcism, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. It starts out tongue-in-cheek to help you bond with the characters, then migrates to horror, then terror. In How to Sell a Haunted House, there really isn’t much “selling”. But there is plenty of conflict between a brother and sister whose parents just died. The sister (main character) is smart, has her life together, and is raising a child. The brother is fuck-up who doesn’t realize he’s a fuck-up and then wonders why there are consequences for his actions. You know the type.
Hendrix always nails female characters, enough to make this writer jealous. The content of this book will hit hard for anyone who has dealt with a parent’s death. Especially if it’s your last parent and you now have to deal with splitting the inheritance, the house’s objects and furniture, what to keep, what to toss, what has value, what doesn’t, bickering with everyone about it, not to mention handling all the legalities. Then combine that with the characters Hendrix creates, like the brother that Mom always liked best and the eccentricities that empty nesters left behind.
The brother is the best antagonist I’ve seen in a long time. The whole plot is a rollicking ride (what does “rollicking” mean? And why does it only apply to rides?) It’s definitely not as serious as The Final Girl Support Group, which I think is his best book but not my favorite (I’m not sure what my favorite is yet). Imagine something like “Child’s Play” or “Annabelle”. Something clearly camp but combined with domestic problems like “Oculus” or “The Amityville Horror”. It’s a book about dealing with grief and getting along with siblings you don’t get along with and death as a human concept.
It’s a great book. It’s Hendrix’s latest work. I definitely recommend it, especially if you’re fond of eighties horror.
This book is like his other ones — My Best Friend’s Exorcism, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. It starts out tongue-in-cheek to help you bond with the characters, then migrates to horror, then terror. In How to Sell a Haunted House, there really isn’t much “selling”. But there is plenty of conflict between a brother and sister whose parents just died. The sister (main character) is smart, has her life together, and is raising a child. The brother is fuck-up who doesn’t realize he’s a fuck-up and then wonders why there are consequences for his actions. You know the type.
Hendrix always nails female characters, enough to make this writer jealous. The content of this book will hit hard for anyone who has dealt with a parent’s death. Especially if it’s your last parent and you now have to deal with splitting the inheritance, the house’s objects and furniture, what to keep, what to toss, what has value, what doesn’t, bickering with everyone about it, not to mention handling all the legalities. Then combine that with the characters Hendrix creates, like the brother that Mom always liked best and the eccentricities that empty nesters left behind.
The brother is the best antagonist I’ve seen in a long time. The whole plot is a rollicking ride (what does “rollicking” mean? And why does it only apply to rides?) It’s definitely not as serious as The Final Girl Support Group, which I think is his best book but not my favorite (I’m not sure what my favorite is yet). Imagine something like “Child’s Play” or “Annabelle”. Something clearly camp but combined with domestic problems like “Oculus” or “The Amityville Horror”. It’s a book about dealing with grief and getting along with siblings you don’t get along with and death as a human concept.
It’s a great book. It’s Hendrix’s latest work. I definitely recommend it, especially if you’re fond of eighties horror.