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I’m absolutely AWFUL at reading challenges or reading according to any kind of theme/important month. These things always seem to sneak up on me & then I feel panic set in.

Case in point: it’s Women’s History Month. It’s also Middle Grade March, something I had never really heard of. There’s also the Trans Rights Readathon later this month. And the last couple days I’ve seen people posting about Women in Horror Month, which I assume ties into Women’s History Month. 

I am always taking stock of what I’m reading & trying to push myself to read more diversely. The hope there is that, even if I don’t actively plan and participate in those kinds of reading challenges (because I’m wildly unorganized, real talk) I’ll still be featuring books that work for the different challenges/months. If any of that makes any sense. 

I am almost always reading a middle grade horror novel these days, so keeping up with Middle Grade March sounds fun! 

I think I subconsciously tend to not read books by the same author very close together, especially if it’s someone whose work I’ve loved. A way of saving things and making them last, I think. But after reading and LOVING Ally Malinenko’s BROKEN DOLLS at the end of January, I just couldn’t wait to read THIS APPEARING HOUSE (apparently I’m working backwards through her books). 

I feel almost frozen/intimidated to start talking about this book, because…oof. I’m not sure anything I’ll say here will express how much I loved this book. How deeply it scared me. How utterly moved & emotionally wrecked I was by it. THIS APPEARING HOUSE is a whole entire masterpiece, and such a perfect example of what makes middle grade horror so important. 

CW/ this book is about a girl who survives cancer, and so I’ll be mentioning that frequently.

Our main character is Jac Price-Dupree (short for Jacqueline, but ALWAYS Jac!), a twelve-year-old girl who is anxiously counting the days until she’s declared NED: “no evidence of disease.” Jac is a cancer survivor, and she’s coming up on five years of being cancer-free. 

Her Mom is, understandably, a worrier. Always checking in with Jac, concerned that a normal bike accident might be a sudden loss of balance, and a recurrence of Jac’s symptoms. Jac is trying desperately to just move on with her life, and sometimes her Mom’s worrying can feel super overbearing, 

One day while biking in her neighborhood, Jac notices a house on a dead end street that…does not belong. A house that definitely wasn’t there before. A really weird, giant house that seems to have sprung up from out of nowhere on Juniper Drive! 

Something draws Jac to this house; she can’t shake it from her thoughts. And so on a dare, Jac, her best friend Hazel, and two other kids from school decide to go into the house. Right away, things don’t make sense in there. Doorways that spit you right back to the entrance, on a loop. The house seem to have them trapped.

And that’s when the real terror begins. 

I don’t want to get into the plot much further than that. This book has its secrets & I’m going to keep them. 

What I will say is that this book TERRIFIED me. I read a lot of horror. I read a lot of disturbing books. It’s extremely rare that a book will have me dreading having to get up in the middle of the night. So usually if I refer to something as “scary,” it’s more just…I don’t know, messed up? Disturbing? Just generally creepy? 

THIS APPEARING HOUSE genuinely frightened me. Some of Malinenko’s imagery of what’s going on inside this house is straight nightmare fuel & I was LOVING IT! Except, you know…when I had to get up in the middle of the night. Go into my dark hallway. Feel the creeping sense of dread crawling up my spine. Yeah, this one is SO SCARY! 

This book also did something that almost no books do: it made me cry. TWICE! I cry super easy at shows & movies, but it’s extremely rare that it happens with books. But oof, this book was super emotional for me. I’ve lost loved ones to cancer, and so I was emotional reading this from the get-go. Jac is impossibly brave, braver than any kid should ever have to be. And it’s like…she’s tired of being brave. She wants to just…be a kid. 

But now she’s gotta tackle this BONKERS haunted house filled with her worst nightmares! After tackling cancer! 

NOT COOL.

I think Jac & Hazel’s friendship is one of the best I’ve encountered in middle grade horror, for sure. Hazel is such an amazing friend to Jac, but she also keeps him a bit at arm’s length when it comes to her past (she is relatively new to their suburban New Jersey town). In a way, I think Jac is trying to protect Hazel & protect their friendship. So a lot of this book is about Jac learning to let go a little, and lean on her friend. Trust him to fully see her & accept her. These two are just so fun together, I loved their friendship so much!

While much of this book takes place within the House on Juniper Drive, THIS APPEARING HOUSE also has a very distinct autumnal vibe, so if you’re big on matching your books to the season, this would be a fantastic October read! 

But whenever you choose to read it (and you should), hopefully you’ll love this one as hard as I did. This book is so beautiful & heart-wrenching, while also being breathlessly scary and fun! I treasured every single moment I was reading THIS APPEARING HOUSE! 

I always try to avoid putting two books by the same author on my list of favorite reads of the year, but with BROKEN DOLLS & THIS APPEARING HOUSE, Ally Malinenko has made that impossible. These are two of the very best middle grade horror novels I’ve read, and have made such a fan out of me. Super excited to get to GHOST GIRL soon, and to see what’s next from this incredible author!