Not Quite a Ghost: 02/15/24

Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu (2024) is a modern day middle grade retelling of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). It's set in the post-COVID years and looks at how autoimmune problems are often undiagnosed or even ignored, especially in children.

Violet Hart is the middle child and is originally thrilled to get her own room again after sharing with her older sister for the last three years. She's given the attic of the old home her parents buy but it's the one piece of the house left untouched over the years, including the mesmerizing and somewhat terrifying yellow wallpaper.

Where in the original short story the main character was locked in the attic for hysteria (most likely postpartum depression), Violet ends up spending tons of time up there when she catches the virus that's going around. What most kids get over in a few days, never quite leaves her. Unfortunately no tests at the doctor's office or in the ER seem to show any cause.

Along with the medical mystery, there's also the ghost story. The third person narrator implies that the house is sentient much in the same way as the home in The View from the Very Best House in Town by Meera Trehan (2022). The narrator further implies that hauntings are like viruses.

From Violet's POV we see the wallpaper move and change. We see and hear a girl shaped entity who is trapped by the house. We hear the entity threaten Violet. We see Violet eventually defeat the entity with help from the house.

How literally the paranormal events are to be taken is left up to the reader. I am interpreting the haunting as being an infection, or the lingering effects of one, just as Violet is suffering from a postviral syndrome.

Five stars

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