Weekly Reader: Girl Gone Ghost by Dawn Husted; Terrifying and Spooky YA Novel About Ghosts and Murder

 

Weekly Reader: Girl Gone Ghost by Dawn Husted; Terrifying and Spooky YA Novel About Ghosts and Murder

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Girl Gone Ghost by Dawn Husted is a terrifying and spooky YA novel about a teenage girl haunted by the ghost of her deceased best friend.

Sonora Stewart is a high school cheerleader and popular girl when her best friend, Magnolia is murdered. More than likely, she was killed by the Creekside Killer, a local serial murderer who killed several young women but has yet to be identified. 

Sonora is naturally depressed. She is unable to enjoy things that she used to like hanging out with her boyfriend, Chris (especially since Magnolia dated Chris's twin brother, Cooper.). She withdraws from her well-meaning parents and is just floating along in school. She would talk to her older brother, Bram, but he has been out of touch since he moved out and left for college. The only person she can still connect with is her other friend, Rosa, a wild rebel who encourages Sonora's more obstreperous side. Sonora feels lost and adrift without her best friend until she starts seeing Magnolia's ghost and now she feels lost, adrift, and terrified.

Among the more haunting aspects to the book is Magnolia's appearance. This is not a beautiful guardian angel given the task of helping her friend to move on so she can ascend into Heaven. Instead, she is more like a hellacious apparition that frightens Sonora almost to death every time she appears. A smell of rotten fish precedes her arrival. She has one silvery eye that hangs from her socket with worms sometimes peering out from the socket. Water droops from her body to the floor below. Golden hair hangs to her side and her drenched white dress clings to her body. Magnolia's appearance is similar to that of a creature in Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gimmell's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and is about as welcoming. She haunts Sonora so she can learn the truth of what happened to her.

Because of this apparition, Sonora begins to doubt everyone around her, even herself. She is surrounded by suspicious behavior and questions everyone around her to find out what happened to Magnolia. Who is the Creekside Killer anyway? Is the killer Chris, Cooper, or Cooper's new girlfriend, Angela? Is it the strange Goth boy, Lachlan, son of the police investigator who is studying Magnolia's death, especially since Lachlan is taking an interest in Sonora? What about Rosa, did she take her rebellious acts and troublemaking  too far? Is Magnolia's father's suicidal grief just an act or is it sincere? What about Sonora's own father, especially when he shows up with jewelry that looks suspiciously like Magnolia's? Worst of all since Sonora is the only one who can see Magnolia, is Magnolia's ghost real or a hallucination? Can Sonora trust her own mind?

Girl Gone Ghost plays on one of my favorite tropes in the horror genre: the fine line between sanity and madness and whether what we are seeing is real or a manifestation of one's insanity. Husted balances these possibilities very well by providing Sonora with a backstory that suggests Magnolia's arrival could go either way. 

Sonora's grandfather, Paw Paw, has been in a psychiatric hospital for some time so mental illness could be genetic in her family. Not to mention other stuff gets revealed later which causes the Reader to think Sonora's narration is less than reliable.

There are multiple plot twists. A couple twist actually caused this Reader to go back and re-read the earlier chapters just to make sure that she didn't miss something. The final revelation is one that the Reader is completely left unprepared for and that's what makes it a good murder mystery, that the Reader is left in complete surprise at the end. Though there are variations of this ending, the Reader was left unprepared for this ending in this particular context.

Girl Gone Ghost is the type of YA book that is perfect for any lover of mysteries and ghost stories. Just be prepared to feel a chill down the spine and jump with fright at the sound of footsteps nearby while reading. Also, beware of that rotted fish smell.