THE GIRL IN THE WALLS

A middle schooler discovers haunting secrets in her grandmother’s house.

Valeria isn’t looking forward to spending the summer at Grandma Jojo’s house, where “nothing can be not fine”—including V herself. Jojo dismisses V’s autism and forbids her from seeing her college art major cousin Cat, whom Jojo raised and who displays erratic behavior. As if Jojo’s criticism and Cat’s cryptic remark about their family’s history of “kicking out people / who are different” weren’t troubling enough, V begins hearing whispers in the walls that echo the self-doubts planted by her best friend’s rejection and her art teacher’s belittling of her style. The voice, V discovers, belongs to the mischievous ghost of a girl. At first, joining the girl’s pranks on Jojo is great fun—and the girl suggests that if V pulls off something “extreme,” Jojo will be mad enough to send her home. But the more V investigates the secrets she finds behind hidden doors—paintings, a photo labeled Our Broken Doll, a journal—the less friendly the ghost becomes. Is V in danger from her? Through V’s reflective, perceptive free-verse narration and the well-drawn secondary characters, Kuyatt skillfully and compassionately explores complex topics, including self-expression, generational trauma, the dangers of suppressing emotions, and the power of words to shape self-esteem. The emotional toll of masking—endeavoring to appear neurotypical—is especially vividly conveyed. Most characters read white.

An insightful, tense tale of family and (self) acceptance.