My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love Wendig’s books. He leans into horror which isn’t usually my preferred reading, but he does it well. So, when I saw that he’d written a middle-grade story, I had to grab a copy.
And it didn’t disappoint. Molly is thirteen and has been raised, if you can call it that, by her father. Dad is not the ideal parent, he’s pretty neglectful, and Molly has been mostly left to herself. She didn’t really know her mother or the brother who lived apart from Molly and her father. When the story starts, both parents are dead and Molly finds that she is entitled to half of the family business- a mortuary now being run by her brother, Dustin. Molly arrives to claim, if not a share in running the business, at least the cash equivalent. But things are not what they might appear at this particular mortuary or the hidden cemetery it protects. Monstrous things are afoot and it will take Dustin’s knowledge of the otherworldly aspect of the business and Molly’s heroism (supported by some fearsome cosplay) to stop the rogue spirit haunting the cemetery.
This was a fun read. The siblings are as antagonistic toward each other at the beginning as you’d expect for a brother and sister raised in two very different worlds. Dustin is stand-offish and secretive about the real nature of the mortuary business and Molly is belligerent and somewhat pushy. There are a lot of fun supernatural elements in here- a ghost-boy who lives in the wallpaper, talking wolves, a mysterious woman who helps Dustin and seems to not like Molly much at all, and an antagonist spirit that threatens to devour all the magic it can find. The plot may seem a little light to adult audiences but it is aimed at middle-school age kids, so that’s not necessarily a surprise. There’s a good deal of action, a few mysteries on top of the main one, and a lot of Wendig’s usual clever dialogue (tamed down here a bit for the kids). Watching Molly and Dustin slowly come to realize that it’s going to take both of them cooperating with each other to save the business and the magic is fun, and should hit a chord with many kids.
It was a fun book, and read pretty quickly. It would make a great Halloween book for kids who like a good mystery with a fantasy twist.
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This week- March 3-March 9- is Read an Ebook Week 2024. To celebrate, all my books are at least 50% off at Smashwords. There are a few that are even free to download. Maybe take a look and find your next ebook to read? You can find them all here.
And So On... 