Book Review: A Curious Tale of the In-Between

A Curious Tale of the In-Between
Lauren DeStefano
Bloomsbury
Source: Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

In this haunting story, Pram lives with her aunts in a home for the elderly, is incredibly intelligent, and sees and talks to ghosts.  When she is forced to start attending school, Pram meets Clarence, a boy who has lost his mother and suddenly Pram has a living friend who understands her.  In attempt to try and reach Clarence's mother, they visit a spiritualist, but the woman recognizes that Pram has a special gift, and she's very interested in it.  She promises to help Pram find her long-lost father, but has other plans in mind.  Pram must fight her way through the land of the living and the dead in order to find where she truly belongs.

I fell right into this beautiful story.  It's dark and eerie, yet so beautiful because the characters are so loving and breakable and strong.  Pram has few friends--well none if you count only the living--but she values her friendship with the ghost Felix so much.  Despite his being a ghost, he is a solid, true, and important part of her life, but one she cannot share with anyone else because who would believe her?  Pram's story is heartbreaking, and it's even more so because we know so much more than she does.  We're told the truth of her mother's death in the first pages, but Pram does not know, and as she begins looking for her father our hearts break for her because we know soon she will have to find out.

This is a great book for your middle school students.  It has a mystery, danger, and even death.  Pram is a literary heroine that any young girl could look up to as she battles her own fears and insecurities throughout the story.  I honestly wasn't quite sure how this book would end, and I liked that.  A Curious Tale of the In-Between will be out on September 1, 2015.  Pick up your copy and enjoy!

Image Source: Goodreads

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