It's a pleasure to be a stop on the blog tour for
Not Quite a Ghost, by Anne Ursu (Walden Pond Press)! I have been a keen looker-forward-to-er of her books ever since we met at Kidlitcon years ago when it was in Minnesota (2010), and she told me about the book she was working on at that time, Breadcrumbs, which sounded like (and proved to be) right up my alley. And Not Quite a Ghost is even more up my alley, what with the old house part.
Violet is not opposed to moving to a larger house, where she can have a room of her own instead of sharing one with her big sister who has become an unfriendly teenager. But the room that Violet gets is up in the attic, and it smells musty, and it has horrible wallpaper of tangled vines with berries that look like eyes. And Violet wasn't opposed to starting middle school, but her two best friends, her pod from covid times, aren't in her classes, and without a cell phone, it's easy to feel like her bond with them might be in danger. And Violet didn't mind staying home sick one day, but when the being sick part last and lasted, she minded very much indeed.
Violet's post-viral body goes into failure mode, and just can't cope with exertion. The doctor's think it's all in her head, and even one of her best friends doesn't believe she really isn't well. Fortunately, her mother and stepfather take it as seriously as she deserves, and fortunately as well the miserable friendship part of her life works out in the end, with new friendships begun.
But barely able to leave her bed, Violet is stuck in the attic of malignant wallpaper, and it really is malignant--there is a terrifying, hungry, presence trapped inside the vines, and it wants to get out and consumer her.
I found this a very gripping read. The realistic part, focused on Violet's illness, is great, and the supernatural part allows the story to come to a climax and then satisfactory conclusion--after figuring out how to thwart the evil being, Violet's attic becomes a safe place, and even the horrible wallpaper is bearable. Though there is (as is the case for many in real life) no happy end to Violet's post viral chronic fatigue, she at least has friends and a room that isn't trying to attack her. I also appreciated how Violet's underlying worry that her biological father abandoned the family because of her, was also resolved. I do wish the supernatural part had been fleshed out a bit more, tied to some story in the past, perhaps, and more strongly linked to Violet's sickness, but it was still beautifully tense and horrible!
I think it has lots of appeal for young readers of both realistic middle school fiction and haunted houses. The writing is lovely, and I was solidly hooked through my reading, and in the end I closed the book with that happy feeling of time having passed like a blink in the real world!
Anne Ursu is the author of acclaimed novels The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy, The Lost Girl, Breadcrumbs, and The Real Boy, among others. Her work has been selected as a National Book Award nominee, a Kirkus Prize finalist, and as a best book of the year by Parents Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com, and School Library Journal. She lives in Minneapolis with her family and an unruly herd of cats. Find Anne online at anneursu.com.
And just as personal coda--my own old house was troubled last night--the shower came on briefly all by itself, and the thermostat somehow got shut off, so it is 47 degrees inside this morning as I type this. I removed the most terrifying wallpaper the house came with, which graced the old nursery, years ago, so it's not that...though this girl, repeating through the pattern, is still a disturbing memory...
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