Member Review
Review by
Lucia P, Media/Journalist
Sticks in the woods. A hole in the wall. Mushrooms. What do these things all have in common? They're common, everyday things that T. Kingfisher has made terrifying in the novels The Twisted Ones, The Hollow Places, and What Moves The Dead.
Now, we can add roses to the list with A House With Good Bones. Or, more specifically, rose GARDENS, full of rose bushes. Or, even more specifically, a PARTICULAR rose garden - the one occupying the backyard of the titular house.
The rose garden has secrets, you see. Just like Sam's grandmother, who owned the house when she, her mother, and her brother lived in it when she was a child. And although Sam's grandmother is dead and buried, that rose garden is still there. Its roots are still there. And those secrets are DEFINITELY still there. And when Sam's brother tells her that their mother, who still lives in the house now, seems... OFF, the urge to dig those roots up is strong.
Trouble is - what Sam finds when she starts digging isn't easily reburied.
And I'm not just talking about the jar of teeth she unearths from the garden.
What really makes A House With Good Bones tick, though, isn't just the roses, or the ghosts, or the thing that sometimes tickles Sam's hair or face when she sleeps. It's the relationships at the heart of it: The warmth between Sam, her mother, her brother, and even the (perhaps literally) witchy neighbor down the street and the handyman/gardener from across the way makes the terrifying bits all the more frightening because you *really want these people to make it out of here unscathed.* I always find Kingsfisher's protagonists people to root (har har) for, and here, we see that quality exemplified.
A House With Good Bones is scary, yes. But it's also warm, and funny, and full of life... amidst all the death, of course.
If you pick this one up, you may never look at a bouquet of roses the same way again.
Now, we can add roses to the list with A House With Good Bones. Or, more specifically, rose GARDENS, full of rose bushes. Or, even more specifically, a PARTICULAR rose garden - the one occupying the backyard of the titular house.
The rose garden has secrets, you see. Just like Sam's grandmother, who owned the house when she, her mother, and her brother lived in it when she was a child. And although Sam's grandmother is dead and buried, that rose garden is still there. Its roots are still there. And those secrets are DEFINITELY still there. And when Sam's brother tells her that their mother, who still lives in the house now, seems... OFF, the urge to dig those roots up is strong.
Trouble is - what Sam finds when she starts digging isn't easily reburied.
And I'm not just talking about the jar of teeth she unearths from the garden.
What really makes A House With Good Bones tick, though, isn't just the roses, or the ghosts, or the thing that sometimes tickles Sam's hair or face when she sleeps. It's the relationships at the heart of it: The warmth between Sam, her mother, her brother, and even the (perhaps literally) witchy neighbor down the street and the handyman/gardener from across the way makes the terrifying bits all the more frightening because you *really want these people to make it out of here unscathed.* I always find Kingsfisher's protagonists people to root (har har) for, and here, we see that quality exemplified.
A House With Good Bones is scary, yes. But it's also warm, and funny, and full of life... amidst all the death, of course.
If you pick this one up, you may never look at a bouquet of roses the same way again.
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