About the Book
-
Author:
- Trang Thanh Tran
- Genre:
- Horror
- Voices:
- Bisexual
- Cis Girl
- Vietnamese Diaspora
Cover Story: Flower Power
Drinking Buddy: Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo!
MPAA Rating: R (violence, sexuality, gross)
Talky Talk: Ugh
Anti-Bonus Factors: French Occupation of Vietnam, Dan Scott Award for Awful Parenting
Bromance Status: Maaaybe…
Trigger warning: Gross
Cover Story: Flower Power
It’s certainly an evocative cover, and the flowers in the mouth thing isn’t just a metaphor. It really happens in the story (and other, less pleasant things, come out of her mouth as well, just warning you).
Also, remember that the title is She Is a Haunting, not SHE’S a Haunting. If you type in the latter, your library’s catalog will say they don’t have it.
The Deal:
Jade Nguyen is the daughter of first generation Vietnamese immigrants. She can’t afford college, and if her mother ever found out, she’d take out a ruinous loan to send her daughter to school. But Jade’s father, who abandoned the family and returned to Vietnam, has a deal for her: if she and her sister Lily will spend the summer in Vietnam helping him work on the French colonial house he’s restoring, then he’ll pay for her college. Not a bad arrangement, eh?
Except it’s not. For starters, Jade can barely stand her absent father, and resents this attempt to pretend to be a happy family. And this French house, with its American backers, really smacks of colonialism. Plus…there’s something in this house. Something unclean and angry. And Jade worries that the thing has an insatiable apatite. If not for her, for her sister.
Drinking Buddy: Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo!
Jade isn’t thrilled about playing a China doll for the American backers, with their condescension and fake tans. And she’s worried about her sister getting sucked into this world. Still, a bargain is a bargain. Plus there’s Florence, her father’s webmaster, who wants to work with Jade on building the website. And the flirting is pretty obvious. But Jade isn’t out to her family, and what’s the point of getting involved when she’ll be headed stateside soon?
Talky Talk: Ugh
So this was one of the grossest books I’ve read in a long time. I mean, really disgusting. Lots of parasites, skin growths, ghosts rubbing maggots on their nude bodies, insects crawling out of Jade’s mouth…it really took away from her blooming romance with Florence and her love for her little sis.
I have to go floss now.
Anti-Bonus Factor: French Occupation of Vietnam
So the house Jade’s father wants to turn into a bed and breakfast is a relic of the French Indochina days. Long before American got involved in that quagmire, the French ruled Vietnam, and treated the locals with the same courtesy and respect as they did with their African colonies (unfortunately).
Jade realizes there’s something unresolved from that era. Maybe something involving one of her ancestors. But this house wants a sacrifice, and it might be Jade. Or worse, Lily…
Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award for Awful Parenting
So Jade’s father is using her economic distress to blackmail her into spending time with him. But it doesn’t seem to be out of any sense of loss or regret for leaving (and those nightmares about him digging up corpses are just dreams, right?). Even worse, when the inevitable blowup happens, her father blames Jade for him deserting his family.
Sorry, if you ask your preteen daughter if you should leave, don’t use her snippy ‘Maybe you should’ as permission to hightail.
Bromance Status: Maaaybe…
The ghost story was gross, the plot was convoluted, and the resolution unsatisfying, but I think I’m in for another round. On an empty stomach.
Literary Matchmaking
For a much more cheerful book about Vietnamese folklore, try Trung Le Nguyen’s The Magic Fish.
Michelle Jabes’s Holly Horror is another book about a cursed house and the sins of the past.
Or Saint Juniper’s Folly, by Alex Crespo.
FTC full disclosure: I received neither money nor a night in a haunted mansion for writing this review.
