A House With Good Bones - T. Kingfisher

By the time I had actually borrowed this book, I had forgotten what the premise was and why I had added it to my reading list. I read the inside cover to give myself a brief refresher and it didn't ring any bells, but I went ahead and read it anyway. For some reason, I went in thinking this would fall into that weird genre that I'm not sure has a name. The genre of books you've been forced to read in high school which isn't actually that bad, but you hate it because you have to write 3 essays on it. Something about the title and the synopsis had me thinking it would be a dramatic though perhaps pretentious dive into generational trauma.

Well, it is about generational trauma, but turns out this is actually a horror novel. A fairly solid horror novel at that.

I'm not very versed in the horror genre in most mediums. I've seen a small handful of horror films, every horror game I like I consumed via Let's Plays, and I've only read a single horror novel before this one (if you don't count the one I read meant for children back in the 3rd grade). I'm not afraid to admit that I'm pretty wimpy with scary stuff. I almost started crying playing through the Resident Evil 7 demo.

A House With Good Bones did not make me sob in fear or make me lose sleep, but the first and second acts thoroughly creeped me out. The story centers around a 32-year-old woman named Samantha Montgomery visiting her mother in North Carolina. Her mother has been off recently, she's lost a shocking amount of weight, and her personality seems to have totally shifted. The house she lives in once belonged to her own late mother, Gran Mae, who was the manipulative and emotionally abusive matriarch of the family. The house had once been colorful and inviting, but now it's returned to the bland and sanitized version it had been when Gran Mae was alive.

The book's chapters are separated by the days the events occur. Each day is accompanied by the name of a type of rose and a brief description of the plant (roses are a big motif here). The scares are a good and slow buildup of odd events, not trying to shock or surprise you, but leave you uncomfortable and questioning. The last horror novel I read was very bad at this, so it was great to read something that doesn't rely on gore and shock factors. For the first two acts, it did keep me wondering if this was supernatural or grounded, though it was made very clear by the third.

Speaking of the third act, I feel this is where the vibes start to fall apart and the story becomes a bit too outlandish. I really, really enjoy the creative concepts presented in this part, but the general flow and pacing reminded me more of a typical Hollywood movie third act. It's hard to describe without spoiling it, but there's a whole fakeout death and everything that I feel I've seen a thousand times. It doesn't ruin the book for me, but I just think it could have been done better.

It may not be the perfect novel, but it has opened me up to checking out other horror stories in the future. I don't think I'll be diving headfirst straight into Steven King or whatever, but this is a good place to start, with a subtle spooky I like.

On a completely unrelated note, to anyone here who has also read this book, does it kinda remind you of Witch's House? That RPG Maker game from some years back? Just me? Okay.