I love Grady Hendrix, but I always consider his books to be more funny and entertaining than scary. This isn't a criticism; I tend to be a hard scare in general, and I'm much more likely to come away from a horror novel feeling excited or disturbed than actually afraid.

But apparently all it takes to scare the shit out of me is possessed puppets.

I'm not sure why exactly How to Sell a Haunted House creeped me out so much when other books just... don't. There's just something about the emotional setup, the interlude with Mark and the puppet collective, Pupkin's unnatural little voice, that part with the garbage disposal... It all added up to a full-body shudder of a book that I hated having to put down but dreaded to see what would happen next.

It toes the line between chilling and ridiculous, and if it doesn't work for you, it's really not going to work. But for me, it held together.