What Moves the Dead Book Review

Date-9.15.22 

 What Moves the Dead

Written by T. Kingfisher

About from Goodreads.com

From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

Review

Warning might be some spoilers. If you don’t want spoilers please skip down to the Enjoyed section of the review.

    This story was such a ride. I was never sure if I was going to figure out exactly what was going to happen and boy I was shocked with the ending. 

    I felt that I sympathized with Miss Potter because she couldn’t become a Mycologist because of her sex, and it took me a long time to follow my dream and become an artist because I was told I couldn't do it.

    One thing I enjoyed is that I got to indulge in my love of mushrooms and fungus. I am not sure why I like them so much but, I am drawn to them and I like to forage. One time I found a ginormous puffball I wanted to take it home and cook it up. My husband didn't let me because he was worried that it wasn't an actual puffball and I would get sick from it. Now I give him a hard time about it. 

    Another thing I enjoyed was this book was a bit creepy like a horror book should be. Lately, I have been reading supposedly scary books but they are far from being scary. For example ‘The House Across The Lake’ by Riley Sager was supposed to be one, but it was just a thriller and a mystery. 

    I did have a few issues, but that has to do mainly with the word choices. I found myself having to use a dictionary constantly because it felt as if Kingfisher used a thesaurus constantly. This was super annoying and immersive breaking.

Other than the words being immersive breaking I enjoyed this story, but it isn't a book i'll be rereading.

Enjoyed

• The pronoun usage

• The land's history

• Mushrooms

• Creepy

• 
  

Disliked

• I had to look up a bunch of words

• I find some word choices strange 

Quotes I love

• “An amateur only, I fear, as supposedly befits my sex.” - Miss. Potter

• We all have our own way in the world, or don’t. Still, I could guess the shape of some of the obstacles she had faced.

• I did not want to go into that tired house dripping with fungi and architectural eyes.

3 /5 ⭐️

Info

Trigger warning- Suicide, Animal Cruelty, Animal Death Body Disfigurement 

Spice level-  / 5 🌶

Other books in the Series-NA 

Publish date- July 2022

Awards-NA

Genres- Horror, Fantasy, Gothic, Novella