{My thoughts} – The cover of this book truly intrigued me. There’s a nice little surprise under the dust jacket, that you don’t usually find on hard covered books as well. When I first looked at the cover I was thinking that I was gonna be reading a horror book. I mean, at first glance it certainly seems like one. However, that isn’t all that this little gem is made up of, which makes it all the more brilliant in my opinion.

When you first open the book you will notice that the page numbers are written in blue, so are the e-mails, text messages, written letters and all the illustrations have a fair amount of blue in them as well. They blue helps to pull you into the story of the book even more so then you’d think it would be able to at first.

This book is one of those types that actually has a story written inside of a story, with a story that is being explained from the past. I really enjoy books like this because they help to keep the reader engaged as well as invested in the book.

It’s content rating comes from it having some minor curse words within the pages, in the illustrations also show a gun and a knife. I feel it is important for parents to know these things if they are considering letting their younger child read the book.

I really think that anyone that enjoys a little bit of horror with a bit of mystery involved will totally love this book. Let us not forget the added little comic spaced out between the pages! It helped to pull the entire story together nicely and helped to make it a brilliantly written book. ( )

{My thoughts} – The cover of this book truly intrigued me. There’s a nice little surprise under the dust jacket, that you don’t usually find on hard covered books as well. When I first looked at the cover I was thinking that I was gonna be reading a horror book. I mean, at first glance it certainly seems like one. However, that isn’t all that this little gem is made up of, which makes it all the more brilliant in my opinion.

When you first open the book you will notice that the page numbers are written in blue, so are the e-mails, text messages, written letters and all the illustrations have a fair amount of blue in them as well. They blue helps to pull you into the story of the book even more so then you’d think it would be able to at first.

This book is one of those types that actually has a story written inside of a story, with a story that is being explained from the past. I really enjoy books like this because they help to keep the reader engaged as well as invested in the book.

It’s content rating comes from it having some minor curse words within the pages, in the illustrations also show a gun and a knife. I feel it is important for parents to know these things if they are considering letting their younger child read the book.

I really think that anyone that enjoys a little bit of horror with a bit of mystery involved will totally love this book. Let us not forget the added little comic spaced out between the pages! It helped to pull the entire story together nicely and helped to make it a brilliantly written book. ( )

Two and a half stars. I hoped this could compare to "The Family Plot." I whipped through this in an hour, wishing it could be scary. It wasn't, and I scolded myself for being bored. Terry and Denise are unlikable to me, and I wondered often what the story would be like if it were told from Norman's or Dom's perspective. I love how Priest describes houses and how she does haunted, so I finished it. This uses Book Within A Book as clever foreshadowing, a task that is nigh impossible. I applaud the skill. ( )

I love haunted house stories so I grabbed The Agony House off my local library's young adult Halloween display shelves. Checking it out was a good decision.

Denise Farber was only four years old when her father and his mother died during Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August of 2005. Interestingly, the characters in this book always refer to the hurricane only as 'the Storm'. She and her mother, Sally, moved away. Now Sally, and her second husband, Mike Cooper, have moved to New Orleans and bought a three-story Victorian house, the only one remaining on Argonne Street, to restore and turn into a bed-and-breakfast. Denise would like to grab the keys to their U-Haul and head back for Houston, Texas. She wants to spend her senior year in high school with her friends Trish, Kim, and Bonnie, not in exile here. (The Army transferred my mom's job upstate the summer before my senior year, so I can sympathize.) It's eight months until her 18th birthday. Denise can't strike out on her own yet. Well, not without legal hassles because her mother loves her. Mike seems fond of her.

Sally and Mike are getting business loans, but they're not getting the money all at once. It's hot and humid, of course, and the air conditioning isn't working. I'm 65 and spent a good chunk of my girlhood without so much as one window air conditioner in our various houses. Electric fans, even ceiling ones, just don't compare. Poor Denise and family! Does the house deserve the name Denise calls it to herself: Agony House?

If Denise wants to use her old laptop for internet searching, she has to take it to a restaurant called 'Crispy's'. Good thing they have some dollar items on their menu. It's Norman, a nice black kid about her age, who tells her about Crispy's when he delivers a pizza to her house. There she meets Norman's cousin, Dominique. Dominique isn't as nice, but she has her reasons. Before that meeting, Denise meets another neighborhood teen, Terry Jones. He's a chubby boy who has wanted to see the inside of the house for years. Denise already has a reason to believe the house is haunted before Terry tells her a famous writer died there.

Together they discover the last work of writer and artist Joseph P. Vaughn, who worked during the Golden Age of comics (1938-1956). It was carefully wrapped up. We get pages from the comic book here and there for the rest of the novel. I liked this adventure of Lucinda Might and her boyfriend-in-distress, Doug. I wish there were more issues. (That's part of Lucinda's head -- mainly the eyes -- that's seen at the top of the cover and at the start of each chapter.) Denise's research turns up some intriguing information.

Terry is a would-be paranormal researcher. His attempts to capture a ghost's voice work. The first possible ghost that Denise encountered seemed pleasant. Not this ghost. The second ghost is malevolent. Denise and her stepfather start having 'accidents'. Can anything be done before someone gets killed?

NOTES:

Chapter 1:

a. Sally plans to name the B&B 'Desa Miranda' for her late mother-in-law as they work to bring the MIL's dream to life.

b. 'Bienvenue' is French for 'welcome'.

Chapter 2:

a. Denise tells us a little about her biological father, Billy.

b. We meet Norman (named for his Aunt Norma).

Chapter 3: There's some backstory about places Denise and her mother lived. Also, Denise has a new uncle-by-marriage, James.

Chapter 4:

a. Terry Jones shows up.

b. Pages 46 - 52 are the first pages of the manuscript.

Mentions: Yelp, FEMA trailers, EMF meter, and 'Them' (1954 film)

Chapter 5:

a. The first comic book came out in 1933, so no, they haven't been around for a hundred years.

b. We get a fictional Wikipedia article on Joseph P. Vaughn. The Comics Code Authority was real. It was still enforced when I started buying comics in 1968. I remember that when Marvel started publishing stories about a zombie character in the 1970s, they had to call him a 'zuvembie' because the term 'zombie' was banned by the code.

Mentions: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Marvel (Comics), Craigslist, Wikipedia, and the Comics Code Authority

Chapter 7: Denise meets Dominique at Crispy's.

Mentions: Nail house, carpetbagger, Florida, California, New York, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Chapter 8: Pages 93 - 96 and 98 - 100 are the next Lucinda Might comic book section.

Mention: McDonald's

Chapter 10: See more Lucinda Might on page 111.

Chapter 12: See pages 138, 139, 141 - 144, & 152 - 154 for more Lucinda Might.
Mention: white privilege zone,

Chapter 13: We're back to Lucinda Might on pages 156 - 158 and 166 - 169.
Mention: Motel 6

Chapter 15:

a. Denise and Norman visit Tulane University and the market.

b. Denise learns the name of the woman who owned Agony House in the 1950s: Vera Westbrook

Mentions: St. Claude Avenue, gentrifiers

Chapter 16: Pages 213 - 216 have more Lucinda Might

Mention: Aquafina

Chapter 18: See pages 231 - 233 for the end of the Lucinda Might comic.

The malevolent ghost's attempts to get Denise and her family to leave the house were most unpleasant, to put it mildly. That last attempt was really nasty. Can't say I blame Dominique's attitude toward Denise at first. I've read about the shameful way some white persons who move into a gentrifying neighborhood treat the original black inhabitants. The 'haint' blue ceilings on porches in New Orleans was interesting to read about. I blush to admit that I didn't guess the big secret.

How much did I enjoy Agony House? I renewed it so I could reread it on Halloween. ( )

I received an ARC of this book from a giveaway. So I was so excited for this book, it looked like something right up my alley and it was!

While it took me so long to finish I truly don't know, but I always came back to it and it was enough important that I could pick it up and not at all wonder what had happened last time if been reading.

I feel like the book was a little over wordy at times and I found myself anxious to solve the mystery. The characters were all pretty enjoyable. It also made me remember how visual I really am and I adored the comic parts.
( )