Well, this was another Grady Hendrix that I didn't really enjoy. I enjoyed enough that I did finish it. And maybe the puppets will stick in my mind for awhile. But this book was weird. And I also hated the part where it was randomly in the perspective of her brother and he went to school and went touring with the puppet people. It just seemed so randomly placed in the book and I didn't really like it. I liked the premise of this, but all the puppets made it a little crazy and out there. ( )

I don't think I'm going to finish this one. I loved The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires and enjoyed Horrorstör, both from the same author, but this one is not what I was hoping for.

The premise is interesting, as is customary for this author serious themes (saying goodbye to your parents and re-building a relationship with your sibling) are put in the context of a "pulpy" horror novel.

Sadly though it didn't work for me. I love the haunted house trope, but I find evil dolls to be just too stupid and uninteresting (even though they also are a beloved "trashy" trope: I realize my aversion is entirely subjective), so as soon as I realized this was the direction we were heading to I saw myself starting to tune out from this book.

So, while I could never take the "scary" parts seriously, at the same time I wasn't able to embrace the "ridiculousness" and have fun with it.

The serious themes started to get a bit muddled (Mark's backstory is quite out of the blue, I didn't need him to have "hidden depths").

I realized at 52% that I didn't really care. I was in the mood for some horror but this wasn't really scary and this wasn't all that funny either.

(3.25 Stars)

This was pretty good. Well worth the read. ( )

Good read. Finished in 24 hours. I think I would've given it more stars but I felt that the story kept elongating. Nonetheless, the secret revealed by one of the family members 3/4 into the story was compelling. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed a copy of this on ebook from my library.

Thoughts: I did find this curious enough to finish but didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped to. Previous to reading this book I had read Hendrix's "Horrostor" which I found incredibly amusing and his "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires" which I didn't enjoy as much. This book was okay.

Louise finds out her parents have died and is forced to leave her young daughter with her ex while she goes back to Charleston to deal with it. She arrives to find her deadbeat brother, Mark, trying to clear out the whole house and sell it without her involvement. That is when she finds out she inherited all her mother's art in the house, her mother the puppeteer whose art litters every corner of the house and she finds out the house might just be very haunted.

This is mainly a horror book, although it also delves into family issues of Mark and Louise trying to find some common ground together. If you are creeped out by dolls/puppets I wouldn't recommend it. A big portion of this book is about evil/possessed dolls and puppets. I in particular do not like dolls and puppets (I had a mom that collected dolls and it always freaked me out), so I almost stopped reading this on a number of occasions.

The story wanders quite a bit. We move from Loiuse's present back to events in her past. Then about halfway through the book we start hearing from her brother as well. The whole thing feels a bit disorganized. Then things gets a bit goofy as theories about how loving something makes it sentient are presented to the reader, The Velveteen Rabbit is referenced multiple times.

Like with "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires" I found some of this darkly funny but also thought some of it was just out-right unpleasant and didn't enjoy all the meanness in here. A lot of the story feels very contrived as well. Things did wrap up okay though.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay, I finished it. I liked watching Mark and Louise find some common ground as siblings. I did not enjoy the creepy haunted puppets and thought the explanation behind their existence felt pretty far-fetched. I don't really know why I keep picking up books by Grady, they are always just so-so. I guess I always find the premise intriguing but in the future I will probably steer clear. ( )