%%ohp-start%% %%ohp-book-start-526376-2022%% ## She Is a Haunting Status: Read Rating: 5/5 > [!summary]+ > > [!figure-right-s]  > > A House with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic. > > When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She's always lied to fit in, so if she's straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised. > > But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don't belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can't ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves cryptic warnings: Don't eat. > > Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house--the home they have always wanted--will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house's rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all. Genres: #book-genre/fantasy, #book-genre/young-adult, #book-genre/lgbtq [Hardcover.app](https://hardcover.app/books/she-is-a-haunting) %%ohp-book-personal%% %%ohp-book-end-526376-2022%% %%ohp-book-start-1203186-2025%% ## They Bloom at Night Status: Read > [!summary]+ > > [!figure-right-s]  > > A red algae bloom has taken over Mercy, Louisiana. Ever since a devastating hurricane, mutated wildlife lurks in the water that rises by the day. But Mercy has always been a place where monsters walk in plain sight. Especially at its heart: The Cove, where Noon’s life was upended long before the storm at a party her older boyfriend insisted on. > > Now, Noon is stuck navigating the submerged town with her mom, who believes their dead family has reincarnated as sea creatures. Alone with the pain of what happened that night at the cove, Noon buries the truth: she is not the right shape. > > When Mercy’s predatory leader demands Noon and her mom capture the creature drowning residents, she reluctantly finds an ally in his deadly hunter of a daughter and friends old and new. As the next storm approaches, Noon must confront the past and decide if it’s time to answer the monster itching at her skin. Genres: #book-genre/fantasy, #book-genre/young-adult, #book-genre/lgbtq, #book-genre/dystopian, #book-genre/science-fiction [Hardcover.app](https://hardcover.app/books/they-bloom-at-night) ### My Review *The cat is called Sandbag!* This was a fun book. I picked it up on a whim when I was browsing an indie bookstore. Since I loved She Is A Haunting and this cover is really cool, it was an easy decision. The story is good, and I appreciate the world building and the setting there. It was nice how the MC was sharing random ocean life trivia on a few occasions during the story. One thing that I didn't like that much, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment, is how some stuff is just too "on the nose" quite a bit. The allegories and parallels and symbolisms are there, but instead of being a bit under the surface, are said (or thought) by the main character quite a few times during the book. Another very small thing is that there were moments where the MC's mom said stuff to her in Vietnamese, but there was no translation whatsoever. While I'm not the biggest fan of the MC translating thing in their heads so we can understand, I think footnotes should be added there. It was a good reading, and it does make me curious to see what the author will come up with next. %%ohp-book-personal%% > [!opening lines] > TODAY'S BODY IS SKEWERED through the old church spire, a gray-black whale peeling in fleshy wisps. Dead too long for food. > > From between my fingers or with my glasses dangling aside, I am still sometimes too scared to see how life has changed. Trailers refurnished with fish and eels under sunken sofas, cardboard boxes soggy and broken into bite-size pieces, and bodies torn up by the crashing waves. I don't like to look, which means, of course, that I have to. %%ohp-book-end-1203186-2025%% %%ohp-end%%