The Lonely Below resonated with me. I’m glad Eva made true friendships at school as she and her family had moved often. I felt she made a home there despite the challenges her autism brought. She showed true growth through and I felt proud that she found her voice. It made me feel like I was watching a member of my family come into their own.

The real horror in this book was a history lesson on what really happened to the black sharecropper community where the school was built. This sort of thing happened across the U.S. Something similar happened in my city but it was big businesses causing the issue. Two thriving black communities were lost. I wasn’t born and raised here, but this book makes me want to learn more about it

The book ended well, but I would’ve liked to know more about what the community was planning to do to ensure people knew the truth about the school. As I’ve heard it said over and over, you won’t know where you’ve going if you don’t know where you’ve been.

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this horror debut novel,The Lonely Below by G. Haron Davis, which tells the story of what happens when a Black, autistic girl named Eva comes to The Blythe Academy where she attends the middle school.

Will she be able to function in this new environment? Will she make any friends?

Tragedy struck the school fifty years ago, and as the centennial approaches scary and sometimes harmful things are happening there—and are they only happening to Eva?

Eva must find and use her inner strength to break through the turmoil, determine just what happened in the dark hidden past on the property, and bring the truth to light.

The descriptions of what Eva was experiencing in the story were so well written it seemed at times as though I could feel them myself. I feel that Eva’s autism is authentically described and that reading about how autism affects Eva and how she copes with it might be enlightening for people who are not familiar with people who happen to have autism.

Scholastic Press an imprint of Scholastic Inc.
On sale date: August 6, 2024

Reviewed on Brightbookreviews (see link)
and Goodreads

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