 The new girl moves into the most haunted house in town  The Haunted follows the story of a girl called Hendricks Becker-O’Malley whose family moves into a new town because of something unsettling lurking in her past. She settles quickly and makes new friends, but soon she finds out that the house she lives in is where a young girl was brutally murdered. To make things worse the brother of the dead girl now lives next door. It doesn’t take long before strange, creepy things begin to occur to Hendricks with her past also coming home to roost. As this is a horror story her parents hardly ever see to be home, so there are plenty of opportunities for spooky goings on. I very much enjoyed this book because it was a perfect blend of Mean Girls, Heathers and The Exorcist. It captures the realistic (American) teenage slice of life, meaning it creates stereotypes but then added convincing extra depth to the characters. A good example was the well-meaning, but tactless, queen-bee who has recently ‘come out’ and the jock with a heart of gold but is unsure what he wants to do in the future. Unfortunately, I felt that in the second half of the book these interesting characters were pushed to the side slightly when they have been develop more. The plot grabs you straight away with a short but creepy prologue which sets up the story, with a young girl being lured into a basement by a soft meowing sound. Also, the protagonist (Hendricks) clearly has a past trauma and that is kept hidden until well into the novel and that really held my attention. The book contains numerous scary, gory and disturbing scenes, for example when you learn about Hendricks past, the spiritual ritual she and Eddie the boy next door perform. Interestingly, and this worked well, nobody else seems to see the ghosts and a scene in the bathroom was another good shock moment. But my favourite was when a kid had his mouth stapled shut by a ghost. That really made me wince. Ouch. The ending was not the strongest part of the book, it lacked a major plot twist and what we were given lacked logic. I do not want to go into spoilers, but the ending felt like it was shoehorned into the story and it was connected to a much earlier part of the narrative which, at the time, did not seem too important. Also, I did not particularly enjoy the ‘I love you’ scenes because I found them cringey and unnecessary but it was nice for Hendricks to find love again considering what happened in her past. This was not realistic and felt like it was something out of a bad rom-com film, as they really did not know each other that well to be in love! Overall I think this was a solid creepy horror novel which I found an enjoyable fast-paced read with a plot that was easy to get sucked into. It had scary scenes including the use of a doll and the fact her baby brother could have died. But the twist let it down a bit because the author just did not build this into the story properly. Once the big ‘reveal’ came along it took me sometime to remember who was being referred to because of the lack of information on them. Even though I have grumbled a bit I do recommend this to any teen who wants a chilling thriller novel but also a frightening ghost story. 4/5 AJ THE HAUNTED BY DANIELLE VEGA  Clean slate. That's what Hendricks Becker-O'Malley's parents said when they moved their family to the tiny town of Drearfield, New York. Hendricks wants to lay low and forget her dark, traumatic past. Forget him. But things don't go as planned. Hendricks learns from new friends at school that Steele House - the fixer upper her parents are so excited about - is notorious in town. Local legend says it's haunted. But Hendricks isn't sure if it's the demons of her past haunting her . . . . or of the present. Voices whisper in her ear as she lays in bed. Doors lock on their own. And, then, one night, things take a violent turn. With help from the mysterious boy next door, Hendricks makes it her mission to take down the ghosts . . . . if they don't take her first.   |
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