After her father left the family when she was three, Violet, her mother, and older sister Mia stayed in the house they had shared with him. Now that the family includes step dad Eliot and half brother Owen, they needed more space, so bought an older home in need of some work. Violet ends up with a bedroom in the attic that is musty and has creepy old wallpaper with snaky vines and flowers because Mia says it has a bad vibe for her. While her mom and Eliot are working to renovate the house and to take care of Owen, who has some respiratory problems, Violet has to navigate some friend problems in middle school.
She has been friends with Paige and Ally for a long time, but the two have recently decided that it is necessary to have a larger group in middle school and have joined forces with Quinn and Kennedy. The four make fun of Violet for the overalls she wears (that are hand-me-downs from Mia), and her anxieties about things like germs. These anxieties are well founded, since Violet had COVID during the pandemic that sent Owen to the hospital for several days.
After playing Truth or Dare at the sleepover and drinking soda that had Kennedy's backwash in it, Violet is horrified that Kennedy is diahnosed with mono. Violet doesn't feel well, and her mother takes her to the doctor right away. All of the tests are clear, but Violet still feels weak and nauseated by smells that others think are slight. At the same time, creepy things start happening in the room. She feels a presence lurking over her shoulder, but can't really tell anyone. She is too weak for gym, and is given a pass, and spends the time in the library, where she meets Will.
Will was homeschooled and is doing a report instead of going to gym. He is researching ghosts, and Violet helps him. This leads to further complications with Paige, who accuses Violet of pretending to be sick so she can hang out with him. When the spirit in her room starts to physically harm her, Violet knows she needs help, but doesn't want to involve Will or her cat, Trixie, who seems to sense the spirit. Her physical condition deteriorates, but two doctors both tell her and her mother that her symptoms are probably psychosomatic. Luckily, her mother doesn't believe them, and is rather angry at the suggestion. Will Violet be able to makes progress in both feeling better and in dispatching the evil spirit?
Strengths: Violet is an engaging character who is struggling through the almost universal middle school experience of changing friend groups. Along with the move, she also has to deal with the newly distanced relationship with her older sister, worries about Owen, and some comments about her step father, who is Black, while her mother and estranged father are white. Add a creepy spirit grabbing her from the wall, and that would stress any middle school student. The largest part of this book, however, is an interesting and informative exploration of chronic illness, based on the author's own struggles as a teen with postviral syndrome that went undiagnosed and eventually became myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. The fact that one of Will's fathers is a pediatrician who listened carefully and assured Violet and her mother that he did NOT think her symptoms were "all in her head" was good to see. There is also some mending of relationships with Mia, as well as the four girls. Dispatching the spirit is something that Violet manages on her own, and I loved the empowerment that showed.
Weaknesses: I wanted to know a little more about the spirit and her relationship to the house, and sort of hoped that it would be tied to the 1918 flu pandemic, like Hahn's One for Sorrow, but that's just not the direction this took. It is more of a statement about chronic illness than a ghost story; that's not really a weakness, but just wasn't what I was expecting, looking at the cover. A huge portion of fictional children who move have to deal with haunted houses, so it was a reasonable, if incorrect, assumption on my part.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who liked the allegorical nature of Malinenko's This Appearing House or who are interested in middle grade adaptations of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.
