Name: The Agony House
Rating: 3 (7 reviews)
ISBN: 9780545934299

Cherie Priest

A haunted house, a killer ghost, and a long-lost comic come to life in another spectacular package of novel and comics from Cherie Priest, author of I Am Princess X.

The Agony House

"Seventeen-year-old Denise Farber, her mom, and her stepfather are moving back to New Orleans, into the Argonne house, which is over 150 years old, and really showing its age, but which her mother plans to turn into a bed-and-breakfast--but old houses have histories, and sometimes ghosts, and a mysterious old comic book that Denise finds in the attic may hold the answer to a crime and the terrifying things that keep happening in what she thinks of as the "Agony" house."--

Tiffany Robinson

I really thought I was going to like this book but nah. All the secondary characters seemed flat and one dimensional and I thought there was a lot of filler that didn’t need to be in the book. For a ghost story it was rather boring.

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this book through KidLitExchange and the publishing company. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Rating: 3/5

Publication Date: September 25, 2018

Genre: MG Mystery

Recommended Age: 12+ (mystery, some spooky moments)

Publisher: Scholastic

Pages: 272

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Denise Farber has just moved back to New Orleans with her mom and step-dad. They left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and have finally returned, wagering the last of their family's money on fixing up an old, rundown house and converting it to a bed and breakfast.Nothing seems to work around the place, which doesn't seem too weird to Denise. The unexplained noises are a little more out of the ordinary, but again, nothing too unusual. But when floors collapse, deadly objects rain down, and she hears creepy voices, it's clear to Denise that something more sinister lurks hidden here.Answers may lie in an old comic book Denise finds concealed in the attic: the lost, final project of a famous artist who disappeared in the 1950s. Denise isn't budging from her new home, so she must unravel the mystery-on the pages and off-if she and her family are to survive...

Review: For the most part this book was cute and enjoyable. The book had a good mystery in it and the characters are fairly well developed. The story is engaging as well and it would be a cute mystery for younger readers.

However, I didn’t like how the book brought up the topic of white people coming in to “white up” the neighborhood but didn’t go anywhere with it. It seemed like the book could have done better on some of the more social conscious issues but it failed to push those. Instead the book pushed random/unimportant aspects to the point where I felt that it was just trying to fill the book.

Verdict: A cute mystery.

The Agony House

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