Book Review: A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

I didn’t mean to have two reviews back to back but that’s just how my reading has been going lately. Last night I finished A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher and now I’ll review it! Spoiler warning. 

I have a lot of mixed feelings regarding this book. Overall, I enjoyed it but there are some things I take issue with. The main character, Sam, was painfully millennial, and a lot of the humor stood out in a bad way. For a horror book that’s meant to be building suspense, I found myself often distracted by the humor which made the book overall feel more lighthearted. I also found the main character’s skepticism to be pushed to the brink of believability. This could just be a me thing but when the otherworldly creature is directly speaking to you, I think it’s time to face the facts. This could just be a personal critique, as I personally just get very irritated when characters in horror spend so much time saying this isn't real. While this is realistic, as a reader I have already signed up for horror, I know what I’m in for and I appreciate characters who catch on. I offered the character some grace as she is a scientist and addresses this multiple times throughout the story, but when your dead grandmother is made of roses and sitting in the kitchen and you’re still saying this isn’t real, I get irritated. This is just a personal gripe though, I understand that this is realistic for this character, it is just something that annoys me in horror.

In terms of the writing style, I didn’t love the directions of the narrative to the reader. The story is told in first person, but throughout Sam addresses the audience directly with inner thoughts enclosed in parentheses, dipping into second person narration. This is again a personal gripe, as I just don’t like when this happens in books. To me it feels very elementary, extremely lighthearted, and wrecks my immersion within the story. During the climactic scene in the end, when the mutant magic children (best way to quickly explain that) are attacking the family the character continues to make little jokes, which again just take me out of feeling immersed and nervous. Based on reading some other reviews, it seems this book was relatively lighthearted for this author as well who often delivers more straightforward horror whereas this was a bit more cozy. I may check out her other books if this is true, as all the horror aspects of the novel I thought worked really well. 

The increasingly intense feeling of dread worked really well for me. I was worried a few chapters in that it wasn’t going to be a very scary novel, but the author definitely ramps it up. There’s a scene where the character wakes up in a swarm of ladybugs, essentially just covered in them and as she is an entomologist she is not frightened but I was definitely disgusted visualizing that. I think this contrast was really effective, because when it happens again and she nearly panics, the dread of the situation sinks in for the reader. 

The central conflict of the story is one of generational trauma and a family story. Sam and her mother lived with the grandmother, Gran Mae, after Sam’s father died. Gran Mae is written as an abusive figure who tormented both Sam and her mother. However, even 20 years after her death Sam’s mother continues to live in the house. When Sam comes to visit her mother acts odd as though the grandmother is still around. They have a line of sorcery in their blood and the grandmother is the central haunting figure through the narrative, her power persisting after her death. 

There is only about a chapter where the characters confront the grandmother, who manifests a body through her long-loved rose bushes. This chapter is the best throughout the entire novel. It is very tense and shows the characters inner struggles coming to light with the inflictor of them. 

Honestly, my only complaint here is that this wasn’t longer, as I wanted to see much more of this figure and her interactions with Sam and her mother. Very tense, very interesting, no complaints.

I do have some questions about why the grandmother is manifesting now if she’s been dead for so long, but this isn’t incredibly important to the story so I’m fine with it going unanswered. This novel was formatted and written in a similar style to Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and I think anyone who enjoyed either of these novels would enjoy the other. 

I’m giving A House with Good Bones a 3.5 out of 5, because there were definitely issues within but overall was a good horror novel. I would recommend this to newcomers to the genre, or anyone looking for a scare that will still let them sleep soundly afterwards. I think I may check out more novels by T. Kingfisher, but I will be looking at some other horror authors as well. As for future reads, I’m not sure where to go from here.

I finished this book much faster than I thought I would, so I have yet to buy a new one. I have Wuthering Heights and an anthology book that brings together some weird fiction short stories. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi has been on my list for ages, and at my most recent seminar I was encouraged to read more translated books, which may be the push I need to go ahead and read it. I suppose that will be found out in the next book review I do!