‘Man, Fuck This House’ – Brian Asman (Mutated Media)


I’ll be honest (and it’s not like you didn’t see this one coming), I like horror, and I’m partial to a well told ‘Haunted House’ tale, but I picked this book up purely for the title and so I could make my kids giggle when I showed them what I was reading ;o) I mean, wouldn’t you? And they did, every time I showed them. It was great.

But enough of that ;o) I’m also easily hooked by an intriguing blurb and the one below did its job. I got reading and ‘Man, Fuck This House’ ended up being another ‘I’m not doing anything else until I’m done reading’ kind of book. Let me tell you all about it.

Sabrina Haskins and her family have just moved into their dream home, a gorgeous Craftsman in the rapidly growing Southwestern city of Jackson Hill. Sabrina’s a bored and disillusioned homemaker, Hal a reverse mortgage salesman with a penchant for ill-timed sports analogies. Their two children, Damien and Michaela, are bright and precocious.

At first glance, the house is perfect. But things aren’t what they seem. Sabrina’s hearing odd noises, seeing strange visions. Their neighbours are odd or absent. And Sabrina’s already fraught relationship with her son is about to be tested in a way no parent could ever imagine.

Because while the Haskins family might be the newest owners of 4596 James Circle, they’re far from its only residents…

‘Man, Fuck This House’ is a really difficult book to write about because I really want you to read it and so I need to be really careful not to give away the whole concept because then you won’t read it and I really want you to, even if you don’t normally read horror or bizarro fiction. It’s that good, seriously.

We’re looking at a book here that’s very definitely a ‘Haunted House’ tale (with some nice little scares that pop up at just the right moment) and at the same time, a little commentary on family and how fucked up it can be that you have literally no choice in the people that you will spend most of your life with. And then, just when you think you’ve got a handle on things and you’re settling in for the rest of the book… Asman turns everything on its head and you realise that you’re reading something else entirely… And because Asman did it so well that time, he does it AGAIN towards the end of the book and this is where I keep really quiet except to say that you really need to be around for this part, one of those finales where it all makes sense but you still can’t quite believe that you actually read it (I don’t read a lot of bizarro fiction but the finale is pretty damn bizarre, in all the right ways) ‘Man, Fuck This House’ is a superb blend of little clues that draw you in and then ‘reveals’ that cast a new light on everything.

I read a fair bit but it’s not that often that I finish a book and I’m really glad that I read it, ‘Man, Fuck This House’ is one of those book. It’s horrifying and heartfelt, all at the same time, and even a read that will make you chuckle. Buy yourself a copy.

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