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Girl In The Walls

I fully expected a good old fashioned gothic thriller and while Girl In The Walls by AJ Gnuse  is that, it's also so much more.

After Elise loses her parents in a car accident she is sent to a foster home for the night so the adults can figure out where to send her. In her grief she decides to take things into her own hands and sneaks off in the night walking miles to an old house her family once lived in. She secretly takes up residency in the hollows of the old house coming out when the new occupants the Mason family are at work or at school or on occassion when they are asleep. She uses this time to eat, watch tv or search for remnants of her families past life in the house, things her parents accidentally left behind or lost. When they are home she stays in the walls or attic and reads books she's borrowed from the house. 

Can a person really hide in another families house without said family eventually getting wise that something isn't quiet right. What would you do if you felt you where being watched? Would you be able to rest knowing something was there living within the walls. 

I really enjoyed this book and how it dealt with grief and bereavement. I understood it as I will always long for the house I grew up in and my grandparents house where I spend half my childhood even though I'm grown and my grandparents are dead well over a decade I still feel like I've been punched in the gut when I think about the fact that I'll never get to home ever again. Of course I have a home of my own now and while I love it, it doesn't fit the same way my childhood homes did. 

I can understand Elises impulse to be in the place she felt happiest the one she shared with the people who loved her most. I understand her want to find trinkets of thier shared life. 

I really disliked the older Mason brother Marshall but to be honest I don't think your meant to like him he is a catalyst for disaster a clever plot device and a warning not to give your address out to strangers on the internet.
As debut novels go this is an excellent start and I would rate it 4/5
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