Haunting in every sense of the word, from the beautiful prose to the characters I missed from the moment I put the book down.

dnf this book as the writing style just wasn’t for me but I’d love to try pick this in the future again as it was a very interesting premise, I’d rec for more ya readers.

I will be coming back to this book in the later time as for now it was unfortunately a dnf. I was not in the mood for the genre.

I knew I had to read this book the moment I saw it. I had quite high expectations for this one and although it didn’t completely live up to those expectations it was still a haunting and brilliantly written YA gothic horror.

When Jade arrives in Vietnam to visit her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. But, the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralysed.

Jade 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 her cryptic warnings: don’t eat. Neither Ba nor her sister, Lily, believe there is anything strange happening. So, with help from a local girl, Florence, she will prove the house won’t rest until it destroys them.

All of the characters in this book were interesting and brought something different to the story. Jade is an intriguing main character who at first I wasn’t a fan of. As the book progressed I grew to like her character even more. Ba, Lily and Florence are all excellent additions to the story and have their own unique voices.

The plot of this book is what had me hooked. It may seem on the surface like this is going to be a typical haunted house story but it is much more than that. It explores some important and complex themes. Those include colonialism, coming to terms with your identity, sexuality and generational trauma. These are all explored in an excellent way.

There are moments in this book which are genuinely horrifying. The writing of Trang Thanh Tran creates images in your mind that will have your skin crawling. Her writing is beautiful and lyrical and I will certainly be looking out for more books by her in the future.

Overall, She is a Haunting is an engrossing, horrifying and well-crafted story that I would highly recommend. It is so much more than a haunted house story!

Really loved this book, unfortunately I forgot to leave a review here, although I did mention it on TikTok.
Highly recommended

rep: vietnamese m/c, bisexual m/c, f/f romance

She Is a Haunting is an gothic novel about a haunted house in Đà Lat, Vietnam. A house that has a turbulent history steeped in colonialism and racism. Jade and her sister are spending the summer with her father in this house. Initially intrigued by her family's history with the house, she's soon drawn into a dark and grotesque history of its inhabitants. The house is hungry, loud and lonely. Jade is a compelling character filled with rage, and has a particularly complex relationship with her sister and her father which was interesting to read. The romance was enjoyable but very much took a backseat to the haunted house. The reason it is getting 3 stars is that is that it sort of lost my attention in the middle section but did end on really high note. Highly recommend for horror fans.

a gothic debut mystery that had me loving every second off it. Amazing from start to finish and is not one to miss. Unsettling but beautifully done. A wonderful new book from Trang Thanh Tran and I can't wait to see what they write next.

This is a case of "it's not the book, it's me" because I had different expectations.

The story is deep and meaningful, tackling a bunch of complex topic in an engaging way.

However, that's not what I was looking for, therefore I found it a bit underwhelming.

I wanted some creepy/spooky hauntings, mysterious stuff happening and they did, but not as much or as often as I wanted them.

I don't read spooky books often because I don't usually find them appealing but this one sounded so good and it was but I didn't read it at the right time.

I simply wish there were more hauntings and less deep topics, hence why I said this really wasn't for me or the time wasn't right 😅

If you're after a brilliantly written YA gothic horror that you're absolutely gonna devour then look no further. Trang Thanh Tran's writing is vivid and lyrical and, whilst first-person YA can come across as simplistic and lacking depth, this wasn't the case with Tran's writing at all.

She Is a Haunting follows Jade, a Vietnamese-American girl who reluctantly agrees to stay with her estranged father in a spooky old house that he hopes to renovate into a bed-and-breakfast. Soon enough, Jade is convinced that the house is haunted—and for good reason—for it comes with a lot of history that slowly unravels, creating a palpable sense of dread.

Along the way, Tran weaves themes of colonialism, generational trauma, and coming to terms with one's identities that may be at odds with each other. As a first generation immigrant, Jade struggles with not feeling "Vietnamese enough", for example when unable to communicate in her mother tongue, whilst not quite passing as a typical American teenage girl either. She's also bisexual and unsure how to come out to her mother, who she also has a complicated relationship with.

One of my favourite aspects of the novel was the inclusion of a slow-burn sapphic subplot which I was excited to see develop. Whilst this isn't a full-blown romance, I was thankful for its inclusion as it provides some wholesome moments amidst the darkness of the plot—and it can get quite dark.

There are a couple of instances where the writing almost verges into body horror territory, with some pretty visceral imagery that is sure to repulse. But this is still a YA novel, so the horrific is more often articulated through dread and suspense rather than outright gore.

After abandoning the book I tried to read before this one, partly due to its unremarkable writing, She Is a Haunting proved to be a breath of fresh air. The plot kept me hooked, the characters were interesting, and what could have been a typical haunted house story revealed itself to be a complex exploration of some very important themes. YA writing is often underestimated yet this debut novel serves as a prime example of how effective and rewarding YA fiction can be.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

Ye Gods, this YA horror does not pull any punches.

I can sort of see, by the way, why it’s getting compared to Mexican Gothic—I mean, there’s a house and it’s about colonialism—but while that works for back cover copy (the point of back cover copy is to sell the book to the most disinterested possible reader and the quickest way to do that is to say “hey, you know that popular thing successful you love? this is like that!” Even if it isn’t really or is only in the surface-level way) I also hesitate to over-emphasise that connection. Because they’re actually very different texts, in tone, approach, and focus. And there’s something kind of … err … weirdly colonialist (culturally colonialist) in treating any text that wants to interrogate colonialism as the same as any other.

The premise here is that its heroine, Jade Nguyen—a young Vietnamese woman born of immigrant parents—has returned to Vietnam for the summer before university. Her mother (who works long hours as a nail technician in the US) and younger brother will be staying with family; she and her younger sister will stay with her father, who left them four years ago to return to Vietnam. His latest project has been the renovation of a French colonialist house—Nhà Hoa—into what he hopes will be a successful B&B and re-connect him with his Vietnamese roots. Jades family is full of fractures—the loss of their history beneath French colonial rule, the severing of their roots and family connections due to immigration, the semi-recent separation of her parents—as is Jade herself in multiple intersecting ways. She’s bisexual but afraid of her family’s disapproval, lying to both parents in different ways, desperate to attend university for the freedom it will afford her, estranged from her best friend, and constantly trying to reconcile all the ways her identity feels split and fragile.

Her father has promised to pay her university tuition if she (and her sister Lily) spend a month with him at Nhà Hoa. Except it becomes apparent to Jade (who starts experiencing sleep paralysis not long after she arrives) that the house is haunted: it is plagued by insects, strange noises, and ghosts, one of whom—a beautiful Vietnamese bride—keeps warning Jade “do not eat.”

Needless to say, this is all creepy as hell. But it’s also a lot. Like, there are two ghosts, a parasitical infection, that may or may not be connected to the insects that fill the house, and the house itself, which is a living presence in the book (it is not just haunted, it his haunting, do you see) with its own hungers, and even its own subsections where we get to experience its incredibly disturbing point of view for ourselves. Because the horror elements function as allegories of colonialism, the sheer oppressive weight and scope of is effective in these terms (I mean, most gothic novels that I’ve read stop at one ghost OR a living house OR a deadly parasite: this has all of them) but I did sometimes think they diminished each other’s impact. And then on top of this we have a subplot in the first 50% of the book where—frustrated at not being believed by her family—Jade is staging her own haunting on top of the actual haunting she’s aware is happening: a baller move, we can surely agree, but this is plot on top of plot on top of plot. All of which said, (not that you should take my word for it because I am really not a big horror reader and am scared by things like having my feet hanging over the edge of the bed when I go to sleep) I felt the horror writing, the way the smothering atmosphere is established then the built upon, was absolutely stunning.

Honestly, the writing across the board is stunning. It’s capacity to spin from beauty to horror, and also capture the sharpness, the vulnerability, of a teenager is incredibly impressive. I’ve been a few reviews note that they found Jade unpleasant or whiny or difficult to connect with. Obviously everyone gets to respond to books as feels right to them, but I personally find this an unfair take. There’s a passage in the book which I foolishly forgot to mark where she says how much she loves her own name—because it sounds strong and hard and cold—and I will say that Jade puts up a good front of being all of those things. Not to compare a Vietnamese teenager to a sad white lady but … I think a good reference point for Jade as a character might be the heroine of Fleabag. Someone whose damage causes damage, who responds to pain with anger, who is so terrified of the vulnerability of love that she pretends she doesn’t even want to be liked. Are these necessarily “likeable” traits? No. But they’re incredibly relatable ones. And it is not the job of characters to always show us reflections of ourselves or the world we live in that we find flattering or otherwise pleasing to behold. More to the point though, unlike Fleabag, Jade is bearing the weight of a cultural dislocation so profound—a generational trauma that runs so deep—I am kind of … quite boggled that anyone could not, in practice, be on her side. Even if she’s not always on her own.

<blockquote>When I don’t know what I want her to say to me in return? Is there a word in Vietnamese for someone like me? Stubbornoverachiever. A stereotype. There’s one in English, but it catches on my tongue. Bisexual. Needy. Neither of us has the language or time to figure it out yet, and there’s a power in never being known because no one can use you against you.</blockquote>

There’s also a tender, tentative, nearly-romance here for Jade with the Vietnam-born, American-educated Florence, left by her parents in the care of her by uncle and his male partner, another victim of divided family. It’s hard not to love Florence and it’s the burgeoning connection between her and Jade—alongside Jade’s imperfect but still loving and protective relationship with her younger sister—that stops the book plunging into irredeemable darkness. Because there is no escaping that this is an incredibly emotionally complicated story and the family dynamics can be pretty damn painful. Especially because part of Jade’s journey as regards her parents, their past, and her own relationship to the history of Vietnam, is learning to live with that pain for better of worse. Some hauntings are, after all, inescapable.

<blockquote>I don’t look at Đà Lạt, at Vietnam, and think Europe. What I see is a version of the place Mom and Ba left behind, and also where I could’ve grown up, with a language that I would know fluently, paternal family to possibly love me, and a history that would finally be known. All these things were taken from me, before I was even born.</blockquote>

For my queer readers, though, and at risk of spoiler for the sake of emotional comfort, I will note that—despite missteps in Jade’s past—both her parents are ultimately loving and supportive of her bisexuality. Of course, this is a super subjective area but for me, at least, I really appreciated the way Jade’s bisexuality and her anxieties around it were handled. The pain of invisibility, and self-enforced passing, is just a difficult thing to articulate. And while coming out is always hard, there’s a specificity to Jade’s fears surrounding it—the way even this is embedded is handed-down trauma of being good, of fitting in, of hiding yourself—that felt very real to me, and spoke to me very deeply. The fact that Jade’s parents, for all their flaws, are able to move beyond some of this damage to accept their daughter for who she is does speak softly but firmly of future hope.

As noted above, there is a lot happening here, emotionally and literally. Almost, if I’m honest too much. I think the book did run a little long and I think it didn’t always perfectly balance, or keep track of, its various threads. Intrusive thoughts, for example, play heavily into Jade’s narration in the first 20% of the book but are never mentioned again. Or maybe it’s just you stop worrying about your intrusive thoughts when you’re in the middle of a literal haunting, I don’t know. I also occasionally found the book a little heavy-handed in some of its devices (for example it makes a crack about Alma—one in the white investors in the house, who is obsessed with its ‘romantic’ past—having a PhD in colonialism about three times, which is twice more than it needed to make the point). Which is not to say I had any issue about how it portrayed racism, colonialism and the atrocities committed in Vietnam and upon Vietnamese people: just the prose is scalpel sharp most of the time, it didn’t need to also being wielding a hammer.

Finally, I wish the ending had managed to address its supernatural and non-supernatural elements a little more coherently. One of the major themes is, of course, the way that when your history has been stripped from you, and forced into invisibility, you all become ghosts anyway: but there are *real* ghosts in that house as well as *real* colonialism, and also perhaps *real* parasites, in the past and the present, and also a *real* white woman Jade gets into a physical fight with. But it was hard to tease out where the book wanted us to lines and where it wanted it us to make connections between generational trauma, colonialist atrocity, poor parenting, poor parenting caused by brain parasites, brain parasites in general, and actual ghosts. And, y’know, maybe that was part of the point. But it did feel a bit like the book was lurching slightly under the weight of its plot and themes, much like a French colonialist house being consumed by its own hydrangea.

Let me, however, make it very clear that these are the minorest of minor quibbles. This is an extraordinary debut from a wildly talented author: uncompromising, messy, ambitious and deeply, wonderfully queer.

This is not the genre I usually read, but it is always the types of books that I usually don't read that surprise me the most and end up loving. This is a gothic sapphic story that was so unique.

"She is a haunting" by Trang Thanh Tran is a debut novel that promises a spooky and romantic ghost story, but it falls short in its execution. The writing is jarring and the author uses words and expressions that don't sound quite right in their context, which can pull the reader out of the story. The main character, Jade, doesn't have a significant character arc, and her pettiness and childish resentfulness towards her father feel artificial and too immature for her age.

The plot of the book revolves around a haunted house in Vietnam where Jade is spending the summer with her father and sister. When Jade starts experiencing strange sensations and encounters a ghostly bride with a cryptic message, she decides to stage some haunting events to scare her family into leaving the house. However, the house seems to have a mind of its own and is determined to keep its inhabitants.

Overall, "She is a haunting" has an interesting premise, but it failed to deliver on its promise for me. The story doesn't hold well, and the characters feel fake and unconvincing. I would rate it 5/10.

Incredible.
First horror I’ve read and I’m so creeped out at how amazing writing this was.
It was funny, it was sad, it was creepy and disgusting. It’s was such an awesome book, there’s no other way to describe it.
It did what it had to do and that ending really did not disappoint!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for this ARC! This was probably my most anticipated YA horror of the year and I was not disappointed!

We’re following Jade a Vietnamese-American staying with her estranged father in Vietnam while he renovated a big French Colonial house for five weeks in exchange for the money she needs for college and freedom. Soon she begins experiencing sleep paralysis, and seeing a ghost bride who warns her not to eat. When neither her sister Lily, or her father believe her she and the daughter of her father’s business partner, Florence, decide to stage a haunting of their own. However, the house has other plans.

This book has such a unique and interesting premise and is a genuinely good haunted house story with a twist. Weird stuff starts to happen from the get go and we are thrown straight into the story which I loved. It’s the perfect atmospheric gothic horror.

I found Jade, our main character, to be a little unlikeable at first but as you get to know her you understand where her cynical personality started. I loved her relationship with Florence. Jade is bisexual and I really enjoyed that discussion as well. How Jade was continually fighting with her bisexuality but also saw college as “freedom” in a sense that she didn’t have to worry what her family would think while there.

This book also talks a lot about colonisation and the white people in this book genuinely made me want to bang my head against a wall. I mean one of them literally has a degree in colonisation, can you be anymore clueless. I might be wrong but I felt that the overall story was a metaphor for colonisation, how the house was trying to take over its inhabitants and make them subservient, it echoed the treatment of the Vietnamese people when Vietnam was colonised. It made me so angry the blatant disrespect the white people showed towards the houses history and who actually built the house. How the people who gave their lives to build these homes that while people claim as their own are forgotten in the process.

I found the writing style hard to gel with at times but it was also really beautiful so that was totally a me thing and in no way reflects on the author who is so talented and weaves a perfect, multi layered story flawlessly.

I’ve seen this book on so many people’s “Most Anticipated Releases of 2023” videos on YouTube and the buzz is warranted! I also think that fans of adult horror would really enjoy this even if you’re not normally a fan of YA horror definitely check this one out! Trang Thanh Tran is definitely an amazing author and I am so excited to read more from her! This was released on the 19th February so you can get your hands on it now!

Haunted houses, bisexual MC, ghost girlfriends and the horror of colonialism? What more could my heart possibly desire?! Good vibes, gorgeous cover and engaging to read, I had an all-round good time with this one!

She is a haunting is a frustrating book, that seems to be unclear as to it's purpose. It explores the family dynamic between separated immigrants as they struggle to adjust. Jade's father chose to return to Vietnam and the house where his parents worked, turning it into a boutique hotel. Jade's resentment at his abandonment of their family is tested as she travels to Vietnam with her sister to 'earn' her college fund. This familial tale is then warped into a horror story as the house appears to have it's own agenda 'learning from it's unhappy past inhabitants.

The premise and style didn't really commit fully to the suspense and 'gore' of a traditional horror as the family dynamic layered over it competes for the reader's attention and the relationship of Jade and her father equally lacked in any real sense of connection. Not for me, perhaps hampered by reading on my mobile phone.

Synopsis: Jade has to visit her father, but there is something wrong with the house. They are always listening.

CW/TW: Death/Murder/Insects/Bugs/Possession/Sentient House/Forced eating/Homophobia/Colonisation/Racism (Others may be present)

Rep: Vietnamese and American-Vietnamese Cast | Bisexual MC | Sapphic side character/romance | Anxiety

She Is A Haunting, by Trang Thanh Tran is a gorgeously gothic and creepy read that had me hooked from the very first page. The writing is immersive and rich, the gothic motifs and creepy imagery works well throughout the book to create an unsettling and haunting atmosphere. The book is told from Jade’s POV, but I really loved the little extra element that happens at the start of each chapter – it worked well to set the tone of the book, maintain the underlying feeling of the house being sentient and added an eerie ethereal touch to the story.

Similarly, I loved Jade’s POV. Jade is stubborn, protective and loyal, so her tense relationship with her estranged dad, and her desire to protect her sister creates the perfect dynamics and atmosphere for this book. Moreover, I enjoyed the addition of the use of Vietnamese throughout the book, which, while set in Vietnam, is used specifically to illustrate the effects of diaspora on Jade and her family. I also loved Jade’s POV because of her stubborn desire to prove herself. From haunting the haunting, to protecting her sister, Jade’s pov, ideas, thoughts and feelings keep you engaged and connected with her and the story.

Tran very cleverly uses the horror and hauntings within this story to explore the theme of colonisation. The haunting of the house, the stories it holds and the effects it has on the characters in the modern day show just how damaging the effects of colonisation can be and how it ripples through the generations. While the horror is used to symbolise this, Tran does not shy away from directly confronting and showing the cruelty of colonisation, as she tackles it head on through Jade uncovering the truth behind the house. I thought this was done in a very clever, toughing and clear way that bluntly showed the truth while also cleverly and subtly building up to this through the hauntings.

I adored the haunting aspects of the story, the sentience of the house, the beautiful but horrifying ghosts, the clever twists and slow reveals of the story letting us piece it together alongside Jade. This combined with the ominous warnings, the repetitive bug motif all came together to create something truly unsettling but fascinating.

I loved Jade as the main character – her brashness, stubbornness, her love for her family, the desire to belong, everything about her felt so real. I also loved her relationship with her sister, and her sister’s character. I thought the two balanced and played off of each other well while also maintaining bond between the two. Similarly, I liked Jade’s relationship with Florence – the two also balanced well and had an interesting dynamic that made you want to see out their relationship. Jade states clearly and confidently in the book that she is bisexual, which I absolutely loved because this is not done nearly often enough, and I loved the sapphic undertones and relationships we got – it was messy and sweet and realistic.

Overall She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran is a gorgeously creepy and gothic tale that is haunting and raw.

*Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for the Netgalley eARC in exchange for an honest review*

As horror goes, this is pretty mild, although it has plenty of disturbing imagery, especially if you are sensitive to creepy crawlies. Where this really shines is the prose, which is wonderful, and the commentary on colonialism mixed with difficult familial relationships, and the challenges of being part of the diaspora, belonging nowhere.

One of the aspects I particularly enjoyed are the short interludes that seem to be from the perspective of the house. Apparently, this is something that works for me in horror more than ghosts do.

The horrors and effects of colonization linger and fester in countries even though the colonizers have left. With this book also digging into colonization, I wonder if the house is meant to be a metaphor for that. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I like the way it made me think.

The middle part drags a bit, and there isn't much plot or mystery to speak of, but I still really enjoyed my time with this book.

This was an engaging and very creepy book. The characterisation is really well done and you do feel for the main character, Jade.

Personally I do prefer books to be slightly faster-paced. However, this book does grip you with an increasing sense of unease as you get through it.

Jade Nguyen, a teenage girl on the cusp of her college years, has always lied to fit in, all she needs to do now is keep it up for five more weeks. During these five weeks Jade, and her younger sister Lily, are spending time with their estranged father in the decaying French Colonial house he’s doing up. All Jade needs to do is last those five weeks and the money for college is hers. However, things quickly take a turn. Jade has been waking up to spooky apparitions around the home, cryptic warnings and a strange feeling inside her throat which may have a darker meaning.

With the help of Florence, the daughter of Jade’s father’s business associate, they start to stage hauntings within the home to convince Jade’s father and sister that these supernatural hauntings are really happening. They still do not believe her. Yet, the house wants more, its hungry and wants to live.

The supernatural aspects of this novel and very true to the horror style. Creepy apparitions, ghosts, paralysis and possession. Everything you would expect from a traditional house haunting. The main aspect I loved about this novel is not just the ghosts but the fact that the house itself appears to be living and breathing through Trang Thanh Tran’s writing.

Trang Thanh Tran has a very easy to read writing style, one that is true to the young adult genre of writing. You are drawn into the emotions and feelings of each character and not all of them are written the same as is very common within horror novels. The main protagonists always seem to have the same wants and feelings with no real emotions other than fear. Through the writing style you not only feel Jade’s fear, but her wants and her needs. She’s a very well written and very well thought out main protagonist.

The beginning of this novel was very fast paced and I found that I couldn’t put it down. It was on track to be a five star read however the pacing slowed dramatically once we got to the actual haunting aspects of the book. The fast paced read became quite slow and generic and began to pick up again towards the end. There is a very clear beginning, middle and end to this book, which is told primarily through the pacing. Nonetheless, I cannot take away how well written this novel is, you wouldn’t think it was a debut!

If you are someone who enjoys supernatural and ghostly elements to a story I would highly recommend it, however, it in my opinion, would appeal more to a younger generation. It is also a very good introduction to horror and supernatural content, so if you are just starting out this would be an ideal book to take a look at!