Chantel's Reviews > The Haunting of Ashburn House

** spoiler alert ** I will preface my review by saying that, had I known this was a book involving zombies/the undead, I wouldn’t have read it.

Coates did a good job in her writing. I would definitely read more of her work in the future. My review is based on the fact that I did not enjoy the main character, Adrienne, & found a lot of what she did to be totally left-field-dumb & secondly, I don’t enjoy un-dead/zombie stories so when this was revealed to be the twist (the haunting) I lost interest & had a hard time believing any of the story. This being said, if you’re someone who can easily immerse yourself in this kind of story then you might really enjoy it.

The twist comes in the reveal that Edith had a twin sister who totally ravaged her entire family at the age of nine (9). First of all, I know this might be possible however, the extent of the damage that was done to the family makes me question how none of them were able to outrun her or, even just not be subjected to her mutilation. Even believing that she has outer-human powers, there were four (4) adults present in the massacre; none of them could get away.

The second point in this plot reveal, which makes little sense to me, is why Eleanor is an adult in her haunting. She was killed as a child, as told by Edith. Why is her corpse that of a grown/aged adult? Does the fact that she killed people with time left on earth allow her deceased body to continue to evolve? Given the fact that it would be her spirit (soul or whatever you want to call it) that is affected & connected to the paranormal powers which allow her to not exit her body forever, why would her body, which would have decayed, age? I felt a little confused by that, but maybe someone else completely got it & this was a non-factor to them.

I have to say that I generally do not enjoy stories where the antagonist (especially in hauntings) will continue to come back. I couldn’t shake the annoyance that Eleanor would continue to come back every couple of years. Why not scatter her ashes to make it harder for her to manifest? Or, why not just burn the house? She’d have nowhere to come back to & no purpose.

Adrienne is young when she moves into Edith’s house so, many of her actions I tried to forgive based on the fact that her parent had recently passed away & she was without money, just trying to figure everything out. However, her ignoring Wolfgang’s, her cat, signs of distress (repeatedly) made me want to scream. If an animal is showing those signs there’s a reason. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she just paid closer attention to her cat (whom I loved, by the way).

I know that it works best for the story to make Adrienne feel out of place in her new house but, gosh did I wish she just boiled some water & cleaned the rooms. Hearing her just sit around & talk about things she didn’t like or things that were dirty made me annoyed. She has ample time, especially before the haunting begins, to clean the house, learn its layout & start to organize it in a way that she likes. She could have posted some of the items in the house for sale to make herself some extra money. Instead, she eats cup noodles for days & relies on the (unbelievable) kindness of someone who has created a fake account for her utilities.

Overall, the beginning of this book wasn’t bad. I did somewhat enjoy the small-town feel of the development. If you don’t mind zombies, some lack of basic decision making & a great cat sidekick (who really carried the story), you’d enjoy this book.