The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alexander

Several students are absolutely obsessed with Alexander's Bad Girls series. This is another of her books that I pulled for our Haunted Halloween display.  I decided to read it based on my students' recommendation.

I hate to say I didn't really care for it.

Delia inherits a house from her great-aunt, also named Delia.  Her parents intend to fix it up and sell it.  She learns the home was once an insane asylum for women and has a dark history of patient death.  Not long after arriving, Delia apparently commits suicide by jumping out a window.  Delia spends the next few years meeting the assorted female ghosts while her sister Jane researches the home and its history.  I won't spoil the climax when Jane returns to avenge her sister's death.

There are several stories/movies/books of houses with souls (mostly evil ones): The Haunting, A Haunting in Connecticut, Amityville and all its incarnations (one of which I plan to read later....).  There are also numerous tales of those trying to avenge the death of a sibling and the new generation being the only ones who can vanquish the evil old.  There was nothing really new about this; it felt like a hodge-podge of already used story lines.

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All opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of Mrs. W.