Not Quite a GhostReview posted September 2, 2025.
Walden Pond Press, 2024. 6 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 18, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 Capitol Choices Selection
This is the second book I've read recently where a kid gets a mysterious chronic ailment with intermittent dizziness and weakness, and they try to please the adults around them and not be "lazy" and things get worse and worse - and honestly, it makes me cringe, but in a sympathetic way.
In this case, the kid in question is Violet Hart, who's just beginning 6th grade and middle school, and whose family has just moved into a big old house where Violet's sister sticks her with the creepy attic room with the hideous wallpaper.
Fortunately, Violet's mother and stepfather believe her when she dares to tell them that she's not feeling well, but they take her to more than one doctor who thinks she's just got anxiety about middle school. And even her friends start wondering.
On top of that, her two best friends only have one class with her - and it's gym class, where she doesn't feel well enough to participate. And they want to expand the friend group to include two more popular girls, and things get awkward.
But while Violet is in the library during gym class, she meets a boy who's not taking gym class at all, and is doing a project on ghost hunting.
So ghosts are in her head when she's stuck in her attic room, feeling awful, and she starts seeing movement in the hideous wallpaper. Is all of it just in her head?
This book immersed me in Violet's world right from the start. Anne Ursu beautifully captures family dynamics and friendship dynamics and a kid who just wants to stay under the radar and find something she can count on when everything's changing around her, including her own body.
The not-quite-a-ghost doesn't really come into the story until late in the book, so it's not necessarily what you want to hand a kid who simply wants a ghost story. But for a great story about the ups and downs of navigating changes of middle school, this book beautifully fills the bill.