CW: Woman swallows photography fluids as a way of killing herself. ( )

A teenager, alone with her mother dead and her father in South America (how convenient), inherits an old house from an aunt she has never heard of (of course) and surprise! it's haunted!

Perhaps that describes a typical plot, but I love books about old houses filled with ghosts. Gretchen's entire family seems to be into photography - both of the living and the dead and much study goes into a major catastrophe that happened in the 1870s. This horrible occurrence needs a resolution or people will die and photos are an important clue in figuring out how to end the "accidents".

That being said, this book had big social and racial issues to discuss. I had never read a ghost story that went this direction before. It was good in that these are important historical and current issues to discuss but bad in that it seemed a little forced.

I felt like the author had an agenda and wove the story around it. It wasn't terribly scary and it wrapped up quickly and crazily at the end. I liked the pacing and the characters at the beginning but by the end, stuff just happened so fast I couldn't keep up. The ghosts seemed too real, too.

So, it was okay for me but a little disappointing. ( )

This book was disappointing, I thought it would be much better. The plot was bland and predictable, the characters lacking in personalities and descriptions. By the end of the book it was very easy to know what would happen. It was also not believable in the way that a 14 year old is driving all over town and repairing cars, Gretchen's father basically deserts for months at a time with no communication for months and leaves alone in an apartment in NYC with a family friend watching over her? Really? Tell me DCFS wouldn't get involved. The pictures that were included added a nice touch, but the pictures of the house did not fit the description of the mansion, nor did it resemble a mansion, or even a nice house, it looked more like a grainery. One of the characters died way too early, even for a YA book, this one is a big disappointment. ( )

This book could have been better. The author left a lot of questions unanswered, the ending fell flat, and some things just didn't make sense. I did enjoy the historical aspect of it. If you are looking for a quick, spooky read you'd like it, but don't expect it to be spectacular. ( )

What's It About?
Haunting photographs and dark family secrets...A love of photography, an old camera, and countless questions...these are all that sixteen-year-old Gretchen has left of her mother, who mysteriously disappeared years ago. Now she must return to the place where her mom vanished—a decaying mansion that Gretchen has suddenly inherited from her great-aunt Esther. However, Gretchen won’t find the answers she’s seeking without unraveling the secrets that lurk inside the house. There are stacks of photographs and letters from her ancestors that go back centuries, pointing to some kind of haunting past. But when proof of the mansion’s dark history appears to Gretchen in the form of ghostly visions and the soft, eerie whisper of her mother’s voice, there’s no doubt that something sinister has taken place there. No matter how scared she might be, Gretchen must somehow uncover the reasons why this indescribable force has descended upon her family and find a way to set everyone...even the dead...free.

What Did I Think?
It was a YA novel so I wasn't really expecting it to be much more than just a good ghost story...which it was. I found parts of it to be somewhat slow and drawn out...while other parts seemed overly rushed. Gretchen and her two friends, that she had only just met, discovered the families secrets in two days. That just didn't seem possible as those secrets had been buried for 200 years.

I didn't dislike the book but it had potential to be so much more. If you are looking for something light with just a bit of a creepy tone to it, you're definitely going to enjoy this one. ( )