EXIT NOWHERE

A middle schooler gets trapped with classmates in a haunted manor where they must reckon with a vengeful ghost.

After quiet loner Barret Eloise’s teacher groups her with Helena, Wayne, and Ridge for a project on local history, the unlikely foursome settles on Raithfield Manor as their topic. As part of their research, they interview a woman at the realty office that’s trying to sell the old house. She fills them in on the history of the Raithfields, who moved out during the Great Depression after four of their children died. When the kids sneak into the long-abandoned mansion around which rumors whirl (after all, their teacher wanted them to “experience history”), they end up imprisoned. The house transforms into a series of terrifying challenges—for example, the library floor becomes waves of lava—run by a tortured, power-hungry ghost. The only way to survive, the kids reason, is to triumph over every obstacle. Experienced genre fans may guess the ultimate reveals; however, the scares are safe for newbies, and the book will appeal to readers who enjoy ghost stories. Barret Eloise is a sympathetically struggling protagonist, someone who stumbles over her words, is focused on school almost to her own detriment, and sometimes misses social cues. Her relationship with Helena offers meaningful representation of fraught tween friendships, and the connections among the four classmates are special in their own right. Helena is cued Black; other major characters present white.

Well-drawn characters encounter tame spooks.