How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Hello everyone. I hope you are having a great day.

Do you like scary movies and books?  I remember being a kid when The Exorcist came out.  My parents wouldn't let me watch it.  Of course, I snuck to the family room and stood behind the door to try and see what the hub bub was about.  The pea soup vomit was all it took to turn me away.  The movie Poltergeist reinforced my fear of dark water, which is odd since I had a lifeguard certification as a teen. Books don't seem to bother me as much, The Shining, I loved.  I disliked the end of King's It.  The Heart Shaped Box, now that was a frightening book that I had to keep putting down, it was so good.  Darcey Coates, now she writes great haunted house books.  I guess horror is difficult to write, but when done well those stories are hard to forget.

I recently read How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix.  This is the story of a brother, Mark, and sister, Louise, who have lost both their parents in a terrible car accident.  They have to clean out their childhood home in order to put it on the market.  The book's jacket says the house doesn't want to be sold.  I don't want to say any more about the story itself or I'll give everything away.  Please be cautious about reading Amazon reviews, they contain lots of spoilers.  

The story moves quickly, I read the 400+ page book comfortably in just two days (a record for me). For more than 200 pages, I was completely onboard.  Although some suspension of disbelief is necessary, the story was enjoyable and very spooky.  Then it seemed like the author gave up and just threw in loads and loads of gore.  I was starting to not be as enthusiastic about the story.  Just when you think it's wrapped up, nope still 100 more pages of increasingly bizarre and improbable things happen.  On top of it all, for me the ending was a complete disappointment.  Uuggh, I've had this on my tbr for six months and was so looking to reading it.  Maybe this is Grady Hendrix's style, and he is just not for me.  I don't know as this is my first of his books. You may love this book.  It is very creative, scary and the characters of Lousie and Mark are well developed.  If you read this crazy, spooky tale, I hope you love it.