ARC, 352 pages
Release Date: February 28, 2023
Published by: Bloomsbury YA
Read from: February 5-26, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: Publisher (I received an ARC of this book from the Netgalley in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: Body Horror, Colonization, Racism, Homophobia, Death of a Parent, Fire/Fire Injury, Insects
For Readers Interested In: Haunted Houses, Romance, LGBTQIA+(Bi) , Racial/Ethnic Diversity, Set in another country, YAA house with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic.
When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.
But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don’t eat.
Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house—the home her family has always wanted—will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.
*MY THOUGHTS*
When I heard there was another YA horror book by a person of color, I jumped on it. There’s not too many horror books by people of color out there, so I’m going to try and get my hands on all of them. Unfortunately, this wasn’t at all what I thought it would be about. I think I may have hyped it up in my head too much…..
Ok so when I heard about this book, I was all in. It’s set outside the US, it featured an LGBTQ character, AND the cover is beautiful. It had all the things to set this up to be a Nikki book. But the way it was executed was just not it. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t think it was creepy at all. There was a couple of times where it was a little creepy, but it was more gross than anything. Like it had me scared of how I slept and if it was with my mouth open. But for the most part, nothing else besides that was scary. I wanted MORE. The chapters from the house were pretty good, but even those weren’t scary. It was like it was only called horror because there were 2 ghosts. I just think it could have had MORE.
I think another thing about this was the characters. I could not stand that girl lol BUT I gave her the benefit of the doubt because she was still a teen. But she was old enough to know better. Like she was supposed to be turning 18 soon and starting college? Yeah she was acting like a brat. Even her younger sister had more sense than her. I get that she’s “jaded” (pun intended) and all, but nothing got her to get a better attitude. She didn’t have any growth and I got tired of yelling at her through the book. The ghost characters were the ones that were actually interesting, but even with them they didn’t really give a backstory or really go in to depth on what happened to her. It just made it seem like she was there. But I had to buy a B&N copy anyway because there was an extra chapter because it was a special edition. And if you didn’t know, the extra chapter was from the ghost. And THAT was why I actually ended up liking her. But it shouldn’t take an extra chapter that not everyone has for me to change my mind.
But, although this book wasn’t great at the horror aspect of this, I DID like the lesson on colonization it gave. I didn’t know about the colonization of Vietnam, (although I should have guessed) but it was cool to learn about it in this book. It was definitely a lesson I didn’t see coming. It was the only part of the plot that I was really interested in. And when this wasn’t what was being talked about, it was just boring. I stopped several times because I was not in the mood to finish it. But it just wasn’t for me.
This book was not really what I expected…. It was ok. I was super disappointed. The premise was good, but the actual execution wasn’t great. I wish this review was better, but alas, I only liked the one plot aspect, the premise, and the beginning of the book. It just wasn’t what I had in mind.
Overall, I give this
