I finished this in one day, one afternoon.
It is 'Good Different' - which I also read this year, and is one of my new favourite books - but in a ghostly horror context. It leans much, much heavier on the generational trauma theme - and the family connection and understanding theme - than in 'Good Different'. It is powerful, gripping, poignant, and important.
'The Girl in the Walls' is like a haunted house tale that's mostly set during the daytime. It may remind anyone of how they used to visit and stay at their grandparents' house on holidays as a kid. There are bound to be many secrets hidden away inside old houses; hidden in locked and forgotten rooms, and within the walls.
Themes of the falsehood of "normal" and keeping up appearances to survive in an unkind and uncaring world, and the lengths you go to hide truths about yourself and your family, and finally coming to terms with them, to realise that there is nothing wrong with you and anyone else like you, and you deserve to be happy and free - it is all clear in 'The Girl in the Walls', just like in 'Good Different' (it's a motif), except with the "perfect" but crumbling old house - with its ghost, and its porcelain dolls and secrets and sludge and dead rats - added in as metaphor.
A metaphor for how endangered, closeted, marginalised people are in society.
Stigmatisation against the neurodivergent, and the mentally ill, and prejudice overall, is sick and horrific. But when it is your own family that doesn't accept you - when it is the people who are supposed to love you no matter what, who should be the most trustworthy and never change how they feel and act towards you - when they don't support you, even betray you--
That it the biggest horror.
(I'll stop comparing Kuyatt's two novels in verse now, as it's not fair. They should be seen on their own merits and standing.)
'The Girl in the Walls' has an autistic teen girl protagonist, V, who is an artist, and she loves drawing anime-esque characters, and wearing funny, cartoony socks. She's a wonderful girl. From the start she knows that there is nothing wrong with her, that her neurodivergence is a part of her, and her superpower. This is becoming harder and harder for her to believe, however, when she is made to stay with a prominent member of her family, her "perfect", "clean", uptight, stuffy, snobby grandmother, Jojo, who sees art as a waste of time, and refuses to see who her granddaughter is in a positive light; even denying her identity.
V is not so secure and confident as she tells herself she is; same goes for Jojo, who is hiding secrets of her own. Like a secret family history, deep in the dark, in her old, "clean", white, boring, rotting house...
How does the ghost factor in, you might ask?
Not telling. I'll leave it at that, when disclosing the plot. Read the book itself to find out more, and be mightily surprised.
'The Girl in the Walls' isn't flawless. There are a few confusing moments, random and ill-thought out details, and typos that could have done with a bit more revising and editing. It could have done with further branching out in terms of diversity and inclusion, especially considering its themes?
However, regardless, it is a nice, sad, touching children's ghost story, that teaches you about art and expressing your true self with pride, never minding what other people think, and never keeping your feelings and truth hidden and festering inside.
It teaches you about empathy and compassion.
As Kuyatt says in her Author's Note at the end:
'While people I love can hurt me, they can also love me and have their own fears and insecurities and many sides.
At a time when our news and media are quick to capitalize on ugly divisive feelings, tell one-sided stories, and oversimplify reality, I think it is more important than ever that we have stories that remind us of the complexity and nuance of the people around us. In a time when hatred seems at an all-time high, we need to practice and model listening, empathy, and SEL--for ourselves, and the kids in our lives. I know I needed these reminders--that's why I wrote this book.
I hope that The Girl in the Walls makes readers feel seen, but that it also makes all of us slow down and pause in our assumptions of others. That we will take time to listen to one another's stories, and even if we don't always agree or understand, that we will respect the messiness and nuance. That we can see those around us--and ourselves--as strange and wonderful.'
No one is ever only one thing.
No one is a doll.
No one is broken.
The ghosts of our past can't stay hidden forever.
'A Girl in the Walls' - it is hard for me not to feel it is a junior novel in verse version of 'A Guest in the House', after recently reading that. It is also a bit like 'Anya's Ghost', and an autistic, junior version of 'The Yellow Wallpaper'.
But it's its own new, unique, precious gem.
It's a thrilling, tense, enlightening book on empathy and kindness, written from the heart, and from a good faith place.
Go read it, whether you are neurodivergent or neurotypical.
Final Score: 4/5
