Review : The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender
The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender
Pages : 329
Genre : YA, Horror
Stand alone
My Rating : 4/5
About the Book :
But the house still wants to keep “troubled” girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia gets trapped.
And that’s when she learns that the house is also haunted…
My Thoughts :
I was so pleasantly surprised with The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall! After a bunch of “meh” YA horror reads, it was so refreshing to read something that entertained me so much.
The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall is fast-paced, gripping, mysterious and just horrific enough. Its premise sounds pretty unoriginal as for as horror stories go : haunted house, haunted asylum, we’ve seen it before, and we’ve seen it a lot. And yet, Katie Alender manages to make it fresh and fun to read.
There’s a good mix of everything necessary in there : creepy setting, unnerving atmosphere, mysterious ghosts, a tad of welcome humor and a scary mystery. But two things really made the story stand out for me : the first is the character of Delia, which was written with care and complexity. She goes through a lot in this short book and the way she reacted, good and bad, was so easy to relate too. Her grief, her jealousy, her fear, her anger, everything she felt, I did too, so much.
The second thing I really appreciated was how the author wrote her ghosts and the “dimension” they live in. I love how she played with time. I’d never seen it done quite like this exactly, and it took my breath away a little.
This was my second time reading Katie Alender and I have to say, I quite enjoyed the experience. I would happily recommend The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall to readers of YA looking for a good ghost story that’s not just about the scares!
That looks like a great spooky read for the fall.
It was! It was spooky but just enough. I really enjoyed it.
I just finished reviewing this book on Goodreads. Our ratings match on this one.
Oh! I’m glad to know you enjoyed it too! I didn’t expect to like it this much so that’s always a nice surprise.