The August Book Club – Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu

Join us on August 19th, 2025 at 7PM ET to discuss Anne Ursu’s Not Quite a Ghost (as recommended to us by Hannah and many others in the Carterhaugh community!)

Here’s the description:

“The house seemed to sit apart from the others on Katydid Street, silent and alone, like it didn’t fit among them. For Violet Hart—whose family is about to move into the house on Katydid Street—very little felt like it fit anymore. Like their old home, suddenly too small since her mother remarried and the new baby arrived. Or Violet’s group of friends, which, since they started middle school, isn’t enough for Violet’s best friend, Paige. Everything seemed to be changing at once. But sometimes, Violet tells herself, change is okay.

That is, until Violet sees her new room. The attic bedroom in their new house is shadowy, creaky, and wrapped in old yellow wallpaper covered with a faded tangle of twisting vines and sickly flowers. And then, after moving in, Violet falls ill—and does not get better. As days turn into weeks without any improvement, her family growing more confused and her friends wondering if she’s really sick at all, she finds herself spending more time alone in the room with the yellow wallpaper, the shadows moving in the corners, wrapping themselves around her at night.

And soon, Violet starts to suspect that she might not be alone in the room at all.”

We absolutely loved this moving, creative, and beautiful story. Here are some reviews:

“This is a story about a haunted house—but it’s also a fresh, modern look at unexplained health issues, COVID-19 anxiety, changing friendships, and blended families. Compulsively readable and relatable, Ursu’s twisty middle grade novel is highly recommended.” — School Library Journal [Starred Review]

“Anne Ursu has done it again: Not Quite a Ghost is a tender-yet-fierce hug of a story, complete with heartbreaking (and heartwarming) friendship ups and downs, a sensitive and honest exploration of invisible illness, and a truly creepy thing that lives inside the walls of a very special house. I want to press this beautiful book into the hands of everyone I know.” — Claire Legrand, New York Times–bestselling author of Some Kind of Happiness

“Ursu draws on familiar elements of ghost stories and the renewed attention Long COVID has brought to chronic illness to create a deeply poignant exploration of what it means to be sick in a way the rest of the world dismisses.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books [Starred Review]

If you would like to join us, make sure you’re on the $7+ tier on our Patreon for the month of August!