She Is a Haunting

I really love what this book is trying to do, and I really enjoyed so much of the story up to the very end of it because... it was just meh?

Not sure what the editing process was for this book or what conversations took place during it, but it feels very much like Alma was going to play a much stronger role than she did. There was so much choreography in the beginning about Alma being the colonialist monster, trying to revitalise and support colonialism within Vietnam, and trying to exploit Vietnamese people, and trying to rewrite that colonial history to support European histories...

... and then that ball was just kind of dropped for the focus on the house being parasitic. Sometimes the 'Alma' ball was picked back up, but I don't think it was used very well. And I have to wonder if parts of that were to make white and/or European audiences more comfortable. Or if it was an unintentional pulling back from what was being said, even if there were a lot of strong lines left in.

Overall a very solid, spooky read. It was enjoyable to have a slightly prickly protagonist, and her struggles with family and the legacy of colonialism were well presented and thematically resonant.

I think it was a mistake to market this as a YA book. It's a coming of age story about a teenager coping with her family, but I think it's too challenging and slow burn to really connect with teenage audiences.

The motifs were obvious (food, insects) but well used throughout the book.

I would rate this solidly four stars until about 85% of the way through, but the ending was a bit of a letdown and put in on the three/four star border for me. Horror endings are hard to get right, and I think the secondary antagonist muddled things.