Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story -- Mary Downing Hahn
Shortly after their mother remarries, Molly and Michael are informed that the family is moving out to the country. Which would be bad enough, for sure, but add their horrible psycho hosebeast of a new stepsister to the situation AND the fact that their stepfather always takes her (lying) word over theirs, and they're in for a rough summer. And that's BEFORE they find the haunted graveyard behind their new house.
This one was big fun for a multitude of reasons. There's the unintentionally hilarious dialogue (this passage also has some excellently gratuitous and awkward info-dumping -- it made for super dramatic readings at the circ desk):
Glancing up the stairs to make sure Heather hadn't sneaked down to spy on us, I said, "If only Heather was a normal kid. She acts more like a two-year-old than a seven-year old. And she's mean; she tattles and lies and does everything she can do to get us in trouble with Dave. Why do they always take her side--even Mom?"
Michael made a face. "You know what Dave says." Making his voice deep and serious, he said, "Heather is an unusually imaginative and sensitive child. And she has suffered a great loss. You and Molly must be patient with her."
I groaned. "How long can we feel sorry for her and be nice to her? I know it must have been horrible to see her mother die in a fire and be too little to help, but she was only three years old. She should've gotten over it by now, Michael." (page 6)
Despite the unrealistic dialogue and the infodumping and the waaaaaaay over-the-top (but, happily, waaaaaay funny) drama...
I stared at it sadly, no longer in the mood to continue writing about unicorns, rainbows, and castles in the clouds. ... Then I began writing a poem about real life. Something depressing dealing with loneliness and unhappiness and the misery of being misunderstood and unloved. (page 9)
...I read the book in one sitting and had no desire whatsoever to set it aside for something better. I'm not sure why -- it wasn't just the prose style that I couldn't take seriously, it was also the storyline. BEGIN SPOILER A few pages before the end, Heather the Monster does a complete 180° due to the showdown with the ghost and becomes the darlingest, nicest little sister anyone could ever wish for. There are a few reasons given for her previous bitchitude. One is that she was possessed, which would make the most amount of sense given the flip-a-switch nature of her personality, but I didn't buy it, because there was nothing in the text that even REMOTELY suggested that. The other reason given is that she was so traumatized by holding on to her Big Obvious Secret about how the fire started that it made her act all horrible. I found that one more believable, since I'd imagine that finally letting go of a Big Obvious Secret like that would be pretty cathartic. END SPOILER
It may be possible that I'm putting a bit too much thought into this.
OH WAIT, MORE SPOILERS The other thing that made no sense to me was that the ghost was CLEARLY evil, with scary black pits where her eyes should be and she kept drowning kids and stuff but then suddenly at the end, she was all "Oh, yay, you found the missing bodies of my parents (which were just in the rubble of the house, and so we'll just not mention how weird it is that no one had bothered to dig them out before) and now I'm happy and can be at peace and I don't want to drown people anymore", which, just, no. Salt and burn, dude. Salt and burn. END SPOILERS THIS TIME FOR REALS I SWEAR
So, yeah. Despite the drama and the storyline and the unbelievable emotional shifts and all that jazz, I was hooked. I wanted to punch the stepfather in the face for refusing to see what a lunatic his daughter was. And I felt rather violent towards Molly and Michael's mother as well, for acting like Molly's sole purpose on this Earth was to babysit her stepsister. BUT. I felt like Molly's feelings about -- while, yes, amazingly ridiculously dramatic when put into words -- and difficulty with the changes her family was going through really rang true. So maybe that was why, ultimately, I felt like Wait Till Helen Comes had something.
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Previously:
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Book source: Personal copy bought with my own money.
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