★★★★★ 4
A story about what's left behind after death, both emotionally & spiritually - oh, and evil puppets
Format: Kindle
It takes a bit for Grady Hendrix's How to Sell a Haunted House to get to the "haunted" part of that title, but that's okay, really; what Hendrix is interested in here, as much as anything, is haunting in terms of the literal things left behind by death - the traumas that are left for those who survive, the guilt, the shame, the baggage, and all of the other things left behind by those who went before us. And, in the case of Louise and Mark Joyner, puppets. Lots and lots and lots of puppets. Oh, and one of them might be alive and malevolent, turning all of that metaphorical trauma into a very real presence (and, without getting into spoiler territory, all without losing that symbolic weight) - and one that allows Hendrix to bring real horror into the story of an estranged pair of siblings forced back into contact in the weight of their parents' death, and the reckoning that they have to go through as they deal with painful memories and a nightmare puppet. The end result can feel a little cluttered at times (although, by the end, it turns out to be a lot more interconnected and structured than you might realize along the way), and it doesn't help that it features some very fraught family interactions that cross from "painful" to "infuriating" very quickly. But as ever with Hendrix, there's more heart and emotion here than you might expect, and while it's all handled in his usual slightly off-kilter and unique sensibility, it still knows how to deliver the goods both on a horror front and a character one. I'd put it among the weakest of Hendrix's efforts overall, but there's a caveat here, and it's that I don't think anything he's read has ever been anything less than entertaining and solid overall, so even a weaker entry? Still a good time and a good read.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2023

