WHEN ALL THE GIRLS ARE SLEEPING

Haley, a senior on scholarship at an exclusive prep school, is hunting a ghost that may just be hunting her.

The year before, Haley’s former best friend, mean-spirited Taylor, jumped to her death from her dorm window. The administration wrote it off as a drug-induced suicide, but Haley isn’t so sure after Taylor’s brother sends her a video Taylor recorded on her phone shortly before her demise. After all, almost everyone agrees that the senior dorm is haunted by the Winter Girl, the ghost of a young woman in white. Now Haley embarks on serious research, dipping into the school’s archival materials, interviewing alumnae and previous employees, and talking to other students about their experiences. Her increasingly revealing explorations serve as a counterpoint to brief chapters that appear to be from the unhappy, vindictive ghost’s point of view. Since Haley abandoned Taylor shortly before her death, she feels a strong sense of responsibility for what happened, but is that guilt misplaced or, as the ghost accuses, did she make her jump? Although the creepy dorm and its unhappy residents are richly evoked, none of the default White characters except first-person narrator Haley are well enough developed to fully flesh out the story or support the surprising—and fairly implausible—climax.

Ghost story or mean girls running amok? Either way, still a page-turner if light on characterization.