LIARS' ROOM

A blended family moves into a spooky house—but is it really haunted or not?

Things just haven’t been the same for twins Stella and Alex Hill since their father passed away. The latest big change: moving from Brooklyn to Wildwyck, a former boys’ school in the Catskill Mountains, with their mom, stepfather, and stepbrother, Simon. Simon’s nonstop ghost stories get on the twins’ nerves—and creep into Stella’s dreams. But those same stories earn Simon popularity among his fellow fifth graders, while the sixth grade twins have a hard time making any new friends. Strange humming, menacing shadows, writing on the wall, and pranks that go awry add fuel to the siblings’ feud. The more the family learns about their new home, the more they question what’s really going on at Wildwyck—and how to stop it. Poblocki’s latest is a ghost story wrapped up in a mystery and featuring just-right doses of familiar horror elements. While there are some terrifying moments, the best scares in this text come from the unsettling distortion of truth. Juggling multiple perspectives, the third-person narration—at times deliciously unreliable—allows readers to slowly piece together the actual events. Though there is eventual resolution, lingering questions add a satisfying punctuation mark to this suspenseful tale. All the major characters are White; a side character is cued as Black.

Sibling rivalry with delightfully disconcerting twists.