An uneven but still spine-tingling young adult adventure.
A family moves into a new house with a dark past—and an apparition of a missing girl in its attic—in Schiecke’s YA thriller.
Jess Kierney is a studious and caring teenage girl from a warm family; dad always has pancakes waiting for breakfast, and her little brother, Ben, is more harmless than irritating. Still, she’s feeling apprehensive about their move to the bigger, more remote house at 274 Wicker Grove, even though her mom does her best to put all her negative “what-ifs” to rest. It doesn’t help that the attic is always mysteriously freezing or that Jess finds a beautiful yet creepy porcelain doll in the woods behind her new home. Worse yet are her nightmares, featuring the phantasmal image of a girl dressed just like the discarded doll (“Her skin was pale, the shade of death”). Mom thinks she watches too many scary movies, but Jess’ friends, Amy Diaz and Max Walsh, have heard stories about the house and its former owners’ missing daughter, Hannah Crawford. Believing Hannah needs their help, the empathetic Jess rallies her friends and enlists the aid of their goth classmate, Megan Pierce, a teenage ghost-aficionado, to try to bring the lost girl some peace. Not all is what it seems, however, and a much darker presence stands in their way. Schiecke sets her story in a bygone era: the early 1990s, a time before cell phones and social media, when schoolyard gossip was the go-to for information, not the internet (Jess dives into Hannah’s haunting between times spent listening to Pearl Jam or catching reruns of Unsolved Mysteries). This less-connected milieu helps build suspense, and though the narrative is never overly scary, there are more than a few unsettling moments and blood-soaked scenes. The book builds slowly to a final confrontation in the attic, but reveals too much too abruptly, involving characters who have gone largely unexplored. This undercuts the big twist, though an uncanny séance full of eerie imagery (like a black-oozing bookshelf) brings the ending back around.
An uneven but still spine-tingling young adult adventure.Pub Date: July 24, 2023
ISBN: 9798988693314
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Emerald Link Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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