The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is a Contemporary Literary Fiction novel with light Grief Horror elements. We’re following Eleanor, who is feeling lost and unmoored after the death of her mother.
For years, her Mom assisted her with every aspect of her adult life. Tasks like laundry, meals and finances, were much easier to manage with her mother’s constant oversight.
Now left to survive on her own for the first time, Eleanor is struggling. She’s barely holding onto her job as an online therapist and has no real friends, or support system. In spite of that though, she’s determined to buy her own home.
It was her mom’s last directive to her, and she does have a small inheritance with which to make a down payment. The housing market is tough though, and Eleanor has no experience or knowledge in that area.
She ends up impulsively buying a model home in a valley, where the development was never completed, yet the Realtor assures her more homes, and thus people, will come. For now, Eleanor seems okay with the solitude. She’s just happy to have a place of her own.
Then the rains begin. The weather, matching her mood, is a prominent figure in this story. It exposes the issues with Eleanor’s new home, and opens up a whole range of new problems for her to try to navigate on her own.
She also learns of the shadowy history of the developer, and that knowledge is never far from her mind. As Eleanor succumbs deeper to that which haunts her, the line between what’s real and what’s not begins to blur.
Out of money and options, Eleanor needs to get hold of her emotions, and push herself through the grief process, or risk losing herself to her ghosts forever.
Saying I enjoyed this feels strange, because for me, there’s nothing particularly uplifting or enjoyable about Eleanor’s story. It gets bleak, y’all. I can’t lie about that.
However, as a Literary Fiction examination of grief, I feel like this beautifully captured the experience of a person trapped in that grief cycle, and unable to free themselves from it. Eleanor, though not overly likable, is extremely relatable I feel, in a lot of ways.
I liked her narrative voice and felt like it fit really well with the overall message Fu was trying to get across. I also felt like the audiobook narration of Eunice Wong was the perfect voice for Eleanor.
Additionally, I did like how the things haunting Eleanor were presented, and the use of the weather to set the tone of the story. I could picture it all perfectly and I did begin to really feel for Eleanor and her predicament.
The ending as well, I felt was well-constructed by Fu. You aren’t necessarily going to get a happily ever after with this kind of story, are you? That wouldn’t make sense. Life doesn’t always tie issues up with a pretty ribbon, but what you do get here I think is perhaps a little hope.
This novel is not going to be for everyone, and I get that. I do. I think if you’re the kind of Reader though, who doesn’t mind going somewhere dark emotionally and poking around in there, this could work for you.
Thank you to the publisher, Tin House, for providing me a copy to read and review. While this didn’t lift my spirits, it did capture my attention and held it. That’s quite a feat these days.