Thank you to NetGalley for granting this ARC, super good and fast read. The story was intruiging and the characters had an interesting back story.

This is an exciting story, which I found hard to put down. It has a high level of scare, which I would have loved as a child, as well as the terrifying antagonist. Even as an adult, I found it creepy in places, so it’s definitely an upper middle grade story. An enemy in our midst that most fail to recognise is still one of my favourite themes, especially when it is done as well as it is in Ghost Girl.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Loved this book. Can't wait to read more by the author. Fast paced and interesting. Will add to my classroom library.

This book is about a girl being haunted by an evil presence. It was really fun and I really liked this book. It was really cute and creepy, but went on a little long. The writing was very detailed, though, and made the things going on even creepier.

This ghostly middle grade novel about a girl who can see ghosts combines a spooky (if very obvious) mystery with a tale of old and newfound friendship. Fun for a bit of atmospheric fall reading, but it didn't blow me away.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for a review copy

This was a great middle grade spooky read. Fast paced and perfect for those looks for a spooky read. Loved the friendship between Zee, Elijah and Nellie. This story also digs a little deeper and the characters face real issues like bullying and loss. Perfect for fans of Small Spaces.

This was a highly enjoyable read and I will definitely recommend it to my middle grade readers! They need more horror options like this!!

Absolutely loved this one! This was such a fun read. Zee starts seeing ghosts around her town as suspicious things start occurring. Zee and her friends need to find a way to save the town.

Zee is by far one of my new favorite characters. She's a kick butt, take names kinda gal and is a fantastic story teller. I loved watching the relationship grow between Zee and her older sister Abby, but between her friends as well.

The author added such great details when the ghosts would show up that I would get goosebumps while reading. Not what I was expecting for a middle grade read, but sooo thrilled that I did.

I was super excited when I saw the comparison to Small Spaces, and I definitely see why! A grand addition to the spooky middle grade selection.

Ghost Girl is a book I actually wanted to read in October, but didn’t get around to. So I decided to listen to the audiobook during the commute to work. This was a creepy middle grade story that I really enjoyed. Besides the scary side of the book there were definitely some more serious subjects brought up and handled really well for this age group.

Really loved this coming of age ghost story! Perfect middle grade book for spooky season reading. Likeable characters and a fun plot.

Ghost Girl was such a fun, atmospheric story about a duo of friends that quickly becomes a trio. This is such a great book for any middle schooler that likes horror or dark fantasy. Ally really made these characters likeable and it was intriguing to watch the friendships blossom. I like how Ally didn’t shy away from the heavy topics she introduced in this book, from Zee blaming herself for her mothers death, to Elijah’s father, and Nellie being the “mean girl” but later understanding why. Ghost Girl overall, is an enjoyable read, which is why I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.
If there is one thing that Zee is good at its storytelling, which makes it hard for people to take anything she says seriously. Zee knows she different but doesn't realize how different until a new principal shows up in town ready to make everyone's wishes come true. Knowingly, Zee sees through his charade and must use all her talents to save the town.

Ghost Girl was a fun, atmospheric little story about a very lovable trio of kids. I can definitely see recommending this to any kid who likes horror or dark fantasy stories! While there are some creepy elements, I don't think this is a story that's going to scare the average kid, and I would pitch it as paranormal fantasy just as soon as horror.

My favorite thing about Ghost Girl wasn't the spooky atmosphere or the writing or the plot, but was the characters, and how well we got to watch their friendships blossom with one another. Zee, Elijah, and Nellie are all incredibly lovable kids and you can't help but root for them - even Nellie, who gets a rough start but I quickly warmed up to.

There are some sad and heavy elements at play here, too: Zee's mother passed away in childbirth, and Zee blames herself; Elijah's father fat-shames him and Elijah's mother is doing poorly with her mental health; and Nellie depicts the sort of classic "mean girl with a miserable home life" trope. I enjoyed how Malinenko didn't shy away from any of these topics, but still allowed a gleam of hope to shine through.

Ghost Girl wasn't a perfect read for me, but I enjoyed it overall and absolutely recommend it to young readers, as well as any adult who loves middle grade stories and needs a good reminder of the power of friendship and love.

✨ Representation: Zee is questioning and implied queer; Elijah is Black and fat

✨ Content warnings for: parent loss, grief, fat-shaming, emotional abuse and neglect, anxiety, untreated bipolar disorder

Ghost Girl is a delightfully creepy book for the juvenile reader. With building suspense and a unique-but-believable evil, the story flies along at a brisk pace. Highly recommend for readers who have enjoyed Small Spaces and City of Ghosts. I look forward to reading more from the author!

Ghost Girl had a lot of potential as a middle grade/young adult mystery.thriller. Something was missing for me though.

This scary fun book is about Zee, who's mom died awhile back and who's dad is away looking for work, so her big sister is taking care of her. Zee loves telling scary stories to her best friend Elijah but when they take a short cut through a graveyard, Zee sees a big dog that really scares her and no one else can see it. People are disappearing from their town and when a new principal, Principal Scratch, shows up, Zee is sure the disappearances and Scratch are connected in someone, but everyone loves him! This is a compelling read and I know kids are going to love it!

I once again fooled myself into thinking that a cute, spooky, middle grade novel wouldn’t be as scary as reading adult horror😱 While the thrills and chills in this book aren’t totally the same as YA or adult horror, it’s still frightening, especially considering its intended audience is for kids ages 8–12.

In Ghost Girl by Ally Malinenko we follow Zee Puckett, a girl who absolutely loves ghost stories. She’s always writing new ones and sharing them with her best friend, Elijah. Scary stories are all fun and games for them, until a storm sweeps through their hometown, teachers go missing, and their new principle seems a bit odd. There’s something not quite right with him; he’s starting to have a strange effect on people, and it’s up to Zee to figure out what exactly is going on and put an end to it.

This book has strong friendships, paranormal beings, supernatural gifts and abilities, ghosts, cute dogs, scary hounds, cemeteries, trees full of eyes, grief, and lessons on how powerful and meaningful our words can be. Yes, it’s eerie, but it also has important themes woven in as well.

I absolutely loved this book, and think many young readers would as well. I know I would have as a kid, too.

I was also lucky enough to interview the author about this book and learn about her inspiration for it, and get some more insight into the characters and themes. Click the link in my bio to read more about it!

Thank you so much to Grace from Book Sparks for sending me an ARC and giving me the opportunity to read and review, and interview the author. And a huge thank you to Ally for taking the time to answer my questions! The full Q&A will be up shortly, so check back soon.

Ghost Girl by Ally Malinenko came out on August 10, 2021 and is truly the perfect story to read this spooky season. You can buy it wherever books are sold👻

I've found that I really enjoy middle-grade horror stories, with books like "Small Spaces" and "Nightbooks" being recent favorites. Conveniently enough, "Ghost Girl" by Ally Malinenko is blurbed as being perfect for fans of those books, and I agree. "Ghost Girl" is a perfectly spooky (and at times quite creepy) read for middle-grade readers of all ages.

Our main character, Zee, begins seeing ghosts, and some mysterious force is having an impact on her town, and it's up to Zee and two friends to save the day. While the setup is pretty stereotypical of middle-grade adventures, Malinenko packs the book full of scary scenes and details to scratch your horror itch. I had a lot of fun with this one!

Sadly, I didn’t find myself really loving this book. I love ghost stories, and that aspect of this book is good, but the rest of it was just not all that interesting.

There were a few things I really liked about this book:
-The love of storytelling! Zee really loved stories and her passion for them really shone through the pages. I think it’s wonderful that, even though she was bullied for it, she didn’t let that stop her from loving and sharing her favorite stories or making them up herself.
-The discussion about bullying! Nellie was really mean to Zee and I really liked watching their relationship evolve. It’s always nice to see this but I particularly love seeing it in middle grade books. Kids can be horrible, to be blunt about it, so it’s nice to see that you can forgive your bullies and that bullies don’t have to stay bullies. It was nice to see Nellie humanized more instead of just being a mean girl.
-The ghosts! I loved that Zee saw the ghost in the library. I mean, I love ghosts and I love libraries so how could this not be one of my favorite parts?
-The atmosphere! As the summary says, it all starts with a dark and stormy night. That perfectly set the tone for this ghost story and I loved it. That same feeling continues throughout the book, even when the rain isn’t present. There are just some spooky and eerie scenes that were really fun.

Although there was quite a bit that I enjoyed about this book, there were of course a few things that I didn’t like:
-The writing style didn’t grab me. It’s kind of hard to explain because I said that the tone throughout the book was great but it just felt a little too juvenile for me. And I don’t mean that because I’m in my twenties, I just mean that I don’t think I would have enjoyed it very much as the target audience. There wasn’t really anything condescending about it, it just felt fairly surface-level.
-There wasn’t a whole lot that seemed to go deeper into the characters or “real world” conflict besides the bullying. I wish there would have been more about the issues with Zee, her sister, and her dad. Or more about Zee and Elijah’s friendship. Anything that would have drawn me in more other than just the spooky elements.
-The ending seemed to be a bit lackluster. There was a showdown but once it was done I had one of those “that’s it?” moments where I thought for sure there was a trick, but there wasn’t. It wasn’t a bad ending but it felt a little incomplete to me. A lot of the scenes throughout the book had that same feeling of not being bad but still feeling incomplete.

This book certainly isn’t bad, I just didn’t love it. There was a lot that I enjoyed but overall the book felt like it could have pushed itself a little further to really be great. A little nudge into more character exploration and secondary conflicts would have made a difference. I’d still recommend this book and think that many people will enjoy it, it just wasn’t my favorite.