Cover Image: She Is a Haunting

She Is a Haunting

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Member Reviews

She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran is a layered horror story. A new take on the haunted house trope, where a girl experiences a haunting and then has to fake the haunting so others will believe her. It is queer, creepy, and comments on the colonialism in the past of Vietnam. Thank you NetGalley, for allowing me to read this book and discover a new favorite author.

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My Thoughts:

This is not really my genre, but I would like to read only indigenous and diverse (non white) authors so this one caught my eye. I also got a copy of this at the National Council for Teachers of English conference a few years back and quickly gave it away to one of my former students who are now teaching English just because of the gothic horror and beauty of the cover. When I was able to get my own digital copy to read from NetGalley, I must say it took me a while to start it. Again, horror and especially indigenous and Asian horror is not my cup of tea. If you have not delved into Asian horror movies or tales, take my word for it. These are more psychologically horrific than any Stephen King novel. Usually people should be afraid of real people more than ghosts, but in Asian horror, the ghosts enter your dreams and leave traces of their presence in the waking hours.

This story about a Vietnamese American, Jade Nguyen, who makes a deal with her estranged father. If she goes to Vietnam for the summer, he will give her money for college. Jade is used to faking it and she thinks that the five weeks in Vietnam will be an easy way to get money and get out. But the French colonial house that Ba is trying to restore is somehow alive. It reminded me of the movie Amityville Horror with the weird dead insects and insect parts. In addition, there is a beautiful bride ghost that comes to her and that Jade is strangely attracted to. Most scary, perhaps, is the racist, settler colonial neighbors that Ba tries to kowtow to. Yuck.

Jade seems crazy as all gothic horror/mystery protagonists are want to be. That is what makes this so good and horrific.

From the Publisher:

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 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 they have 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.

Publication Information:
Author: Trang Thanh Tran
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA (February 28, 2023)
Length: 352 pages

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

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I loved this! So spooky and very unsettling. I love this current trend in horror where authors are using systems of oppression as a metaphor for the horror experienced by the characters. Set in Vietnam and featuring a Vietnamese American protagonist, this book explores the past history of white colonialism.

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A deliciously dark and haunting YA horror that will have you turning on the light in the middle of the night.

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I wanted to like this book a lot. The premise sounded incredible and even as I read, I was pleased with the incorporation of Vietnam history, colonialism, systemic oppression, and family trauma into an intense horror drama with a climactic ending. The descriptions on paper are exactly what I want. Unfortunately, this book just never really locked in for me. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. There were elements and phrasing that I found confusing or distracting. I wasn't sure I liked the main character and had a hard time getting behind her. I never felt swept up in the story despite how engaged I was in the premise. There is a ton here to work with and I will definitely still purchase this book for my library for the representation alone, but this book simply wasn't a great fit for me personall.y.

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An unsettling YA horror set in Vietnam. Jade has to visit her estranged dad in Vietnam during the summer while he is fixing up an old house to get the money she needs to go to college. Strange things start happening and Jade starts to uncover the history of the house.

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I generally prefer my horror to be faster paced so it took me a while to get through this Sapphic YA haunted house story, but I did ultimately enjoy the journey. Jade agrees to spend 4 weeks with her estranged father in Vietnam at the colonial house he's renovating in return for helping cover her college tuition. It's an arrangement she's already wary to take on, but as stranger and stranger occurrences disrupt her stay in the house, she begins to suspect there's something more sinister going on here. To convince her father the house is haunted, Jade teams up the niece of her father's real-estate partner to fake hauntings until the real thing becomes undeniable. But are not at peace, and they're determined not to let anyone else find peace here either.

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This book is actually so scary. Trang Thanh Tran wrote a piece of horror that will creep up under your skin. I literally threw up while reading/listening to parts of this novel because I was so freaked out. I haven’t had that reaction before to any book.

But what I loved about this book was how it ingrains Vietnamese culture and history with this dual citizenship with the US that leaves a very Americanized way of life for its main character, Jade. It touches on the difficulties of family dynamics, especially when younger siblings are involved.

The book is sapphic and touches on topics like coming out, but also incorporates ghosts, historical (and current-day) racism, and body horror.

I just really (for lack of a better word) enjoyed this book as one of the terrifying novels I’ve ever read and will never read again. Perfect for the upcoming spooky season.

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This review has 2 parts.

The book itself was very good. It could have been a bit creepier and maybe has less focus on the personal drama in Jade's life but overall, it was a good YA horror book.

The audiobook, on the other hand, oh man. I tried to listen to the audiobook 3 times before I finally MADE myself sit down and deal with it. People have said they had problems with the narrators dry, tonelessness. I didn't have that issue, I think the narrator did a very good job. BUT, no fault of the narrators, she slurred her "s's" and it drove me absolutely batty.

In the end, my advice would be to forgo the audiobook and physically read this yourself.

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I spoke about this book on a bookhaul video and I really appreciated this take on horror. There didn't need to be a lot of blood for it to scare me...enough *creaks* and dead insects were enough to do it. I've definitely recommended this book to friends who I know are into horror!

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I've tried reading this 3 times and on this third attempt, I made it to about the 60% mark before I gave up for the last time. There's just nothing about this book to hold my attention.

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I was really looking forward to this book and the gothic horror that it offered. I was sucked into the story at the start but then felt it meandered and struggled to come to a conclusion. I had to put this book down a few times when I lost interest.

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This is a nicely creepy novel.

The mix of colonialist-horror, teen angst, identity and just pure ick of bugs and scares works extremely well.

I loved Jade & her sister, wanted them to find their happy and wanted them to RUN!

I also enjoyed Jade's cultural confusion - the girl who is very much American, but sometimes feels very much not.

Happy I read this and looking forward to whatever the author gives us next!

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Certainly different from your standard ghost story. First we have the foreign setting and thus the different depiction of ghosts. These are the friendly ghost/poltergeist types of western fiction but more along the lines of Hungry Ghosts. Wanting consumes a spirit, twisting it over time. Even more interesting is the exploration of our relationship to our parents and culture. Our protagonist is between two cultures: too American for her parents and too foreign for her peers. Add in relative privilege and racism and there's plenty to explore here. There are plenty of visceral details, some of them strange and moderately gross. Compelling to be sure.

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This is such a creepy story that willy definitely get under your skin.

I feel like I’ve read quite a few haunted house stories in recent months, and I constantly talk about the haunted house as metaphor, because it is such an effective metaphorical vehicle for so many different ideas. The haunting of a place can open up discussions about trauma, generational divides, feelings that we trap within ourselves, things that remain unspoken and how they fester over time, and I feel like the haunting in this story is absolutely addressing all of those things.

Here, the haunted house represents a perversion of everything an ideal home is supposed to represent: safety, shelter, family, control, stability, refuge. As the spirits haunting this French colonial estate slowly start invading Jade herself through disturbing dreams, loss of body control, intense discomfort and distortion of reality, there’s a thematic transference as the body itself becomes haunting grounds.

What does it mean to be haunted if not to feel the past violently, desperately trying to make itself known in the present? What is a haunting if not unspoken secrets or pain forcing themself into the material world where they can finally be witnessed?

The synopsis makes no secret of the fact that this story is using ghosts as a way to address colonial trauma, specifically. I think it does that so incredibly effectively, especially in exploring how the characters feeling divided between homeland and cultural experience.

Jade and her sister are Vietnamese-American, so they don’t feel Vietnamese enough—especially since they're not comfortable with the language, the mannerisms, the norms, the landscape. But, surprisingly, their father also doesn’t feel like he belongs.

Having left Vietnam for America, a lot of Vietnamese people consider Jade's father to be a cultural “traitor” who abandoned his home without a second thought. That’s why he’s so desperate to pour so much work and so much of himself into restoring this French colonial house, because he wants tangible proof that he is contributing to his country—that he has license to belong in this place.

But of course, you come to see that this place—this representation of the colonial legacy, this place where their ancestors were mistreated and oppressed—is not something worth saving. Is that legacy of pain, suffering, and colonial trauma something this family really wants to claim for themselves?

Again, that’s why this house is such an effective metaphor, because you can replace the floorboards, you can paint over the walls, you can try to hide the painful history of this home from unsuspecting visitors by dressing it up in all these different ways. But the foundation of that place never changes.

So this book really gave me a lot to consider with all of those complex topics, especially considering the thematic intersections with sexual orientation, estranged family, immigration, and isolation.

I do have to admit, is a bit of a slow boil, and there’s one or two minor subplots that I don’t think added to the story in any sort of meaningful way. However, once that final act hits, things get so incredibly intense and, in my opinion, the pay-off that the story is building towards is wildly satisfying. Definitely one of the most impactful endings I’ve read in recent memory, especially within the horror genre. So even if only for that alone, I would say this book is definitely worth the read.

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She is a Haunting was so creepy and I really think my students are going to love it. I can't wait for them to start checking it out and telling me what they thought! Highly recommend!

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First. Yes to everything.
The representation in this book. Yesssss.
I did find the girls a bit annoying but towards the end. It all made sense. The way they treated the father was a bit bothersome throughout the first half. The creepy scenes were just right for a YA scene and the ending was great !

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Evocative atmosphere, riveting tension building, and gorgeous nuanced character work here-- creepy queer, antic-colonial history done very well here!

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I still don’t have quite the words at the moment to eloquently explain what was so striking/compelling about this story, so much so that I couldn’t stop reading it once I’d started. The eerie (and certainly horrific) details, the complicated familial ties (especially between Jade and her father, the mysterious haunted house, the themes of colonization and queerness — it’s got a lot of stuff going on, that’s for sure.

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