How To Sell A Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix

Book number 58 for 2024; 5/5 stars

I’m a fan of Grady Hendrix, after reading two of his other books before this one. And, while I gave this five stars, it almost didn’t make it. It was the ending that pulled it through for me. 

The family drama in this book was almost so “cringe” that I threatened to put it down. I mean, it was bloody awful. The relationship between Louise and her brother Mark was so difficult to read. And I have to confess that Hendrix was quite masterful at making it awkward. Makes me wonder if he writes from experience.

At first, it seems as though it’s not actually the house that is haunted, and I’m still not sure that that’s the case. And, while there have been plenty of horror stories about “haunted” or possessed dolls, in this case, while there are a couple of dolls involved, the majority of the culprits are puppets. And the master of the puppets was one called Pupkin. You see, Louise’s and Mark’s mother had a church puppet ministry. And when their mom and dad died in a horrible traffic accident, Louise and Mark had to clean out the house. This is where the awkward drama starts, and it never stops. And when I say it was “cringe,” I do not think I am exaggerating. 

But, and I have found this to be the case multiple times, the last third or quarter of the book launches it into five-star-land. At some point, it becomes almost unputdownable. I definitely enjoy this in a book, too. I want to be eager to finish it because I want to find out what happens, not because I can’t wait to get on to the next book in my stack. 

I can’t say a lot more about the content without spoiling. But I will say that there was a definite plot turning point on page 252 when someone says, “Why do you think they boarded up the attic? It’s not squirrels up there.”

Were the characters lovable? Absolutely not! Not any of them. Mark was probably the most annoying, but there were times when Louise was just as annoying as Mark. The rest of the family was right up there, as well. 

Also, there is some pretty serious gore in the story, as well, particularly one scene late in the book. I almost couldn’t read it, because Mr. Hendrix did such a “good” job of describing what was happening.

I have to throw this in, as well. Whenever Pupkin was described, I simply could not help envisioning puppet Angel. If you know you know.

TTFN, y’all

My Best Friend’s Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix

Book number 13 for 2024; 5/5 stars

Another five-star read by Grady Hendrix, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. Hendrix’s typical humor shines in this one, and just like the other two I have read, there suddenly reaches a point where things just aren’t funny any more.

The book begins with adult Abby reminiscing over the past, and then immediately flashes back to years from childhood on to high school. The friendship between Abby and Gretchen begins when Gretchen is the only one who shows up to Abby’s tenth birthday party. The relationship begins very awkwardly, but blossoms into a best-friend relationship pretty quickly. 

The story progresses as Abby and Gretchen get older, and eventually, the two of them become friends with Glee and Margaret, and all of them are students at a private school. Abby’s family, however, is the only family that is not really wealthy. 

Something terrible happens one night, though, on a holiday weekend, when the four of them decide to drop some LSD and go skinny-dipping at the lake. Gretchen gets separated from the others, and basically spends the night out in an abandoned concrete bunker by the lake. That’s when it all started. Gretchen really started having weird things happen, and, at first, chalked it up to flashbacks from the LSD. The thing is, none of the other three ever noticed any effects from the LSD.

Things get worse and worse for Gretchen and Abby, until one day, Gretchen seems back to normal and suddenly Abby is excluded from the rest of the group. That’s as much plot as I will reveal, here, but I will say that the eventual exorcism scene is harrowing. 

I will also admit that the end made me cry. But I’ll cry at just about anything, so there’s that.

Definitely another great book by Mr. Hendrix, and I plan on watching the 2022 movie that was made. I am also excited to find that a TV adaptation is in progress for his Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.

TTFN, y’all!

Horrorstor, by Grady Hendrix

Book number 112 for 2023; 5.75 stars (that’s as high as The StoryGraph goes).

This is my second Grady Hendrix book (the first was the Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires), and I enjoyed this one every bit as much as the first one. I love Hendrix’s writing. He starts out light, even funny, and it gradually gets to a point where it’s simply not funny anymore. Actually, it may not be all that gradual. It’s like there’s suddenly a point in the book when it’s serious and frightening from that point on.

In Horrorstor, we experience a day and a night in the life of Orsk employee Amy (I’m not sure we ever got  last name). Orsk is an Ikea knockoff. You know, one of those stores where everything has to be assembled. Everything comes in a flat box, but it is all displayed very pleasingly in the showroom, as you follow the Bright and Shining Path. What do I know? I’ve never been to Ikea. 

The troubles begin one morning, when the card reader next to the employee entrance wouldn’t work, so no one could gain access to the building. They were all diverted to the customer entrance where Basil, the manager, was set to let them in. But the escalator was going the wrong direction. A maintenance guy was trying to stop it, so they could at least use it as stairs, but to no avail. 

At one point, Amy asks Matt (another employee) how they were supposed to clock in. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he said. “There’s nothing waiting inside but retail slavery, endless exploitation, and personal subjugation to the whims of our corporate overlords.” I’ve worked at Sears. That is a pretty accurate statement! 

Things went downhill from there. Things inside the store were broken, smashed. There was a disgusting substance all over one of the couches. Basil decided that he and two other employees needed to spend the night there to see if they could find out who was doing all these things. Amy was one of those people. She was “voluntold” to do it, along with Ruth Anne, who may have been one the sweetest people I have ever seen in a book. 

It is, of course, during this night that everything really begins to go bad. At one point, Amy and Ruth Anne encounter Matt and Trinity making out on one of the couches (they are not supposed to be in the building). But the reason Matt and Trinity are in there is that they are working on some kind of “ghost hunter” kind of presentation. They are convinced that there is supernatural activity going on. So they start working together on this, all the while trying to hide from Basil the fact that Trinity and Matt are even in there.

At one point, they learn that the store was built on the previous site of a prison that existed there in the late eighteen hundreds. Anyone seen Poltergeist? “They’re here!!!” 

That’s all of the plot that I will give away. But from that point on, things aren’t funny, anymore. Deadly serious, and Hendrix conjures up images that even I had trouble imagining. Gruesome and scary, indeed. 

I found the ending, however, to be extremely satisfying. Much is left open to the reader’s imagination at the end. You can make it end however you want it to, I suppose.

I have a lot more Grady Hendrix to read, and am sure I will get to some of it next year.

TTFN, y’all!

The Souther Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix

5/5 Goodreads stars.

Book number 18 for 2023.

This is one of those books that can be described by the word “unputdownable.” I suppose I was literally able to put it down a few times. But I spent more than my usual amount of reading time on this last day, because I simply had to finish it.

I had been walking by the Grady Hendrix section of our library for a while, and had picked up a book or two, considering checking them out. I finally decided on this one, and 1) I’m not sorry; 2) I’m wondering why it took me so long.

Hendrix has a sort of “rapid-fire” writing style that never gets dull. This book starts out funny, laugh-out-loud funny at some points. I can’t exactly nail down when it happened, but there was a point at which it definitely wasn’t funny anymore. I will say that there was one point, on the last day I was reading it, at which I had tears in my eyes. My commitment to avoid spoilers keeps me from saying when that occurred, but anyone who has read it might be able to guess when it was.

One thing I really like about this book is that the sections are named after the books that the book club is reading that month. It starts with Cry, the Beloved Country, which was the one that launched the group of friends into their own book club, spinning it off of the original one. Some of the other books they read were Helter Skelter, Psycho, The Stranger Beside Me, and In Cold Blood. I’ve actually never read any of those. I have a copy of The Stranger Beside Me, but I haven’t read it yet. I have, however, read a book called Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, which opines that Vincent Bugliosi, the lead prosecutor and author of Helter Skelter, got it all wrong.

But that’s beside the point. James Harris, the antagonist of this book (I say THE antagonist, as though there were only one . . . all of the husbands of our book club ladies were pretty antagonistic along the way, as well), is not your average “vampire.” In fact, it might be said that he’s really not an actual “vampire” at all. But he is a monster. And he has come to Old Village and is wreaking havoc in the life of Patricia Campbell.

The problem is, he’s also a really good guy. At least in appearance. He does so much for the community, and for Patricia’s little group of white friends. But someone is helping themselves to children in the poorer area of town.

Mr. Hendrix weaves a web of characters that are both easy to like and easy to despise. I know I felt anger toward almost all of them at least once, except for Patricia, herself, for whom I felt great sadness and pity. It made me very sad that she kept blaming herself for all of the bad things that were happening, but that was because her husband and other people were blaming her and she listened to them.

Even the vampire blamed her.

I do like the author’s note at the beginning. It ended like this:

“I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom.
“As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.”

Never underestimate the power of a group of Southern Book Club ladies.

A few other favorite lines:

“Nightwalking men always have a hunger on them. They never stop taking and they don’t know about enough. They mortgaged their souls away and now they eat and eat and never know how to stop.”

And, when the club was reading Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, one of the ladies said, “Men Are from Mars? That’s giving them too much credit.”

This book is most definitely not for the squeamish. It gets very gory.

I will definitely be reading more Hendrix.

TTFN, y’all!