Grandy Hendrix is becoming a new favorite author. Loved How to Sell a Haunted House. Perfect read to get into the Fall, spooky season mood. Love it!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am sad to say this was my least favorite Hendrix book so far. I was expecting so much from it because I love haunted house stories and I have loved every book previously by Hendrix. Unfortunately, this one let me down. I still had an okay time reading it and I enjoyed the horror elements but the main issue I had was not liking either character at all. I wanted to shake both of the main character constantly and its very hard to totally enjoy a book when you hate the MCs.

I will always pick up Hendrix books as new ones come out but yeah, if someone asks me for a book recommendation, this is not the Hendrix I would recommend.

In How to Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix has turned the banal and the ordinary into something existentially terrifying. This is Hendrix's modus operandi. Often, the most mundane things: an IKEA shopping store, book clubs, one's best friend, or the idea of a family home in his hands, turn twisted, greasy, full of spikes and tendrils, patiently waiting to dig its way into the mind of his helpless readers. Grady Hendrix writes the best horrors. 

“wishing harder than she’d ever wished before that for just sixty seconds someone would hold her, but no one holds moms.” 

One of the overarching features of Hendrix's stories is the flawed characters. People are imperfect, gray in emotions and deeds, sometimes heroic, and other times cowardly. Unless you seek a novel where the good is always good, and the evil is easy to spot, stories and characters are complex three-dimensional creations. As a reader, horror is more effective when I can empathize or am repulsed by characters past their inherent "goodness" or "badness." Hendrix capitalizes on the grayness of characters to effectively tell his stories. 

The premise of How to Sell a Haunted House is that Louise's parents have died. Louise, a mom, has had to leave her child with her ex to travel to Charleston to tie up familial loose ends. One of the loose ends is her childhood home, her father, an academic, and her mother, a woman obsessed with dolls and puppetry. They both loved and knew her best, and the raw pain and emotional deadness from losing a parent are shown well. It feels like Louise has been scooped out emotionally, but she still has to go on living, making decisions, and dealing with what is left of her family, her brother Mark. Mark has his own battles to fight. While Louise left, he stayed, and there is contempt there. 

“But she didn’t have a choice. She would have to handle whatever happened. There was no such thing as too much. There was just more and more, and her limits didn’t matter. Life didn’t care. She could only hang on.” 

As it turns out, selling the house and dealing with their crumbled relationship will be much more complicated and terrifying than either thought. 

There is something unnerving about dolls. It could be because they represent us and who we think we are or the uncanny valley effect, which is the reaction to how human an object looks while not being quite right. Often, it involves revulsion and unease. Some stories capitalize on this trait, Like Annabelle and Chucky. On the one hand, they are toys, harmless objects of play and joy; on the other hand, there is something not quite right about Annabelle. Hendrix took this idea and turned it up to 11. Puppetry is creepy, generally. But obsession and puppetry are so much worse. Think puppets in every room, hanging from the ceiling, their strings lightly brushing your face as you walk under them, their glass eyes staring at you but not seeing. Eyes, everywhere. Hendrix probably sat back in smug satisfaction at the horror practically dripping off the pages. 

“This is where we grew up. It’s not The Shining.” “It’s Shining-adjacent,” Mark said in the gloom.” 

Now take those puppets, eyes everywhere, and give them life. Stick them in a house and put two broken people in there with them. The puppets are unhappy with Louise and Mark's choices; they have access to tools, their teeth, knives, and a propensity for mischief. Voila, How to Sell a Haunted House. 

It is shocking how scary How to Sell a Haunted House is. It isn't one thing, but the combination of writing, characters, dolls, and atmospheric worldbuilding that creates a sense of malice and revulsion on every page. And it only builds as the book nears the last third. Is this my favorite Hendrix book? It's hard to say; they are all different and well done, but this one is the most atmospheric. 

“Louise tried to think of how to explain death to a puppet.” 

Read this novel if you are looking for a frightening time, hate puppets, or want to immerse yourself in a Hendrix world. It is worth the scare and the time to read it. God, I hate puppets.

1. I wasn’t hugely impressed with Grady Hendrix’s last book - The Final Girls Support Group - so I was nervous about this one. I needn’t have been because it ended up being my only five star read of July! In hindsight, perhaps reading a book about siblings clearing out their parents’ house after their deaths might not have been the wisest choice just weeks after doing almost exactly that with my own sister - it certainly brought up some Big Feelings, but it was also a cathartic experience, if only through seeing how much worse this whole thing could have been! At least the creepy doll I found in my mum’s house hasn’t tried to attack me… yet. Easily the best book I’ve read this month and one I plan to go back to again in the future.

2. Next up was How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix for the thriller prompt. This ended up being one of my few five-star reads of the year so far which was really exciting given my lack of enthusiasm for the previous Grady Hendrix book. It was fast-paced, creepy, and filled with the sort of uncomfortable reading I love from this author that makes me keep coming back to his books.

Sleep with one eye open and hide your stuffed animals in the closet because Hendrix's newest novel will chill you to the bone! Full of creepy puppets and family drama, How to Sell a Haunted House stands out as one of the best horror novels of 2023.

Genuinely scary *and* I can see so many of my family members/neighbors in the characters. The combination of abject horror and family drama is insanely effective.

Haunted houses. Haunted dolls. Haunted families. This book has got it all!

Read more thoughts here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv34-8yOpBi/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Most of the time I was thinking, “what the heck is going on?” Other times I was thinking about how it was a good story. It was a strange ride. But it was worth reading. I would say 3.5 stars but rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the DRC.

Omg I loved this so much! Just so much fun and absolutely nutty! It was equal parts scary and equal parts wtf. I love Grady!

This is a scary, creepy, and funny haunted house story. I really liked this addition to Grady Hendrix's work. Caution: if you are afraid of dolls and/or puppets, this will scare the daylights out of you!

A woman returns home to sell her deceased parents house. She has to contend with her strained relationship with her brother, her mother's multitudhttps://www.netgalley.com/member/book/266156/review#feedbackReviewHelpModale of puppets, some stuffed squirrels, and her own past. I didn't want to put it down and despite hating the characters at the beginning, I was rooting for them at the end. There was just the right amount of humor to get you through all the terrifying parts. Will definitely recommend.

He does it again. His books are this unique crazy ride, and I loved every second of it. It was beyond creepy, but exceptional. Very twisted and unique storyline

While I enjoyed this book, I found that it was not one of my favorite of Hendrix's novels. I just had a really hard time caring about the people involved--although the puppets were cool.

A woman returns to her family home after her parents death. Not only does she have to deal with her no-good brother, but she also has to sell her parents haunted house.

I enjoyed previous novels by Grady Hendrix - My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, and The Final Girl Support Group - so I was looking forward to reading his latest novel. I'm happy to say it was another entertaining novel.

How to Sell a Haunted House is creepy, clever, and fun to read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My favorite yet. The love, the fear, and the sibling relationship pulsed at the surface the whole time. I can understand the perspective of those who thought it was overly long, but that pulse kept it the perfect speed for me. I read an ARC, but will be buying this one.

Another exceptional read from Grady Hendrix! There is just the right amount of creepy, right amount of scary, right amount of humor and an exceptional story unlike anything else you have every read. I love reading books that are unlike anything I have ever read before. I know that every single time I open a Grady Hendrix book, it is unique and I have never read a story like it, even before I start reading.

And I never, ever, ever, want to see a puppet anywhere near me or my family. That is all. 5 stars.

Grady Hendrix never fails to creep me out in the best ways. How to Sell a Haunted House is his latest attempt to take years off my life and I loved it. Grady Hendrix will forever be on my must read list!

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order next year and will recommend it to students.

Received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Grady Hendrix has done it again! I’ve read 4 other of his works and this one brings along the creepies just as much as the others. Didn’t know what I was going in for other than a haunted house. So, I was thoroughly creeped out by the thing doing the haunting!

How to Sell a Haunted House is Grady Hendrix's latest novel and it is his version of the classic haunted house story. But like his other novels, the horror and ghosts are not only the supernatural things that we can't see (or in this case can see - PUPPETS!!) but are also the real every day trauma that haunts us.

Reading this book after the unexpected death of both my parents probably made this book a little too raw and personal but I find books are best when they make you feel and think about your own life so maybe this hit me at the right time after all.

This novel was scary and creepy and had elements of horror that I can say I actually have never read in any other books before but where Hendrix shines is again the horror of humanity and the things we do to each other and ourselves. I look forward to reading more of his horror.