Anya's Ghost
written by Vera Brosgol
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1596437135
Anya’s Ghost is a pleasant surprise. What seems like a simple story about a teen girl and the ghost she runs into one day is really a richly layered work that moves deftly from wispy romance to creepy chills with nary a misstep.
Anya lives with her single mother and younger brother. A family of Russian émigrés, they have embraced the American way of life wholeheartedly (Anya’s mother in particular loves her adopted country immensely—a wonderful scene shows her extolling the virtues of “President” Benjamin Franklin and noting that Russia never had a leader as smart as that). Anya and her best friend, Siobhan, are not the most popular girls in school, but they’re not outcasts either, by any means. Instead, they occupy that rarely explored social stratum right in the middle: not too cool, but not too unpopular. They’re only slightly jaded.
One day, Anya accidentally falls into a long-hidden well, where she meets the ghost of Emily Reilly, a young girl who died some 90 years earlier. She says she was fell into the well after being chased by a vagrant who had just murdered her parents and has been there, undiscovered, ever since. Sadly, she can’t travel far from her bones, so she’s been trapped there all this time. But when Anya inadvertently slips a small finger bone into her schoolbag (or perhaps Emily manages to place it in there without her knowledge), Emily gains the ability to travel where Anya goes.
At first it’s a blast. Anya no longer needs to worry about tests at school—Emily can travel around invisibly and see the answers. And much like Cyrano, Emily is there to whisper just the right words into Anya’s ear when she meets up with the jock she’s had a crush on all year. It’s simple and sweet at first, but when Anya begins to look more closely into the real events behind Emily’s death, things start to go downhill. Nor does Emily like it when Anya begins to deviate from her plans.
Anya’s Ghost to me seems appropriate for older kids and teens, but there are a couple red flags that parents, teachers, and librarians may want to be aware of: Anya and Siobhan like to cut class to go smoke cigarettes, and Anya attends a party later in the book where underage drinking goes on. Beyond those, there’s little to object to for young readers; the supernatural thrills are mild and the suspense is not too intense.
Seeing a character as nicely developed as Anya—and the rich cultural background author Vera Brosgol envelops her family in—is a delightful treat. Anya’s Ghost is a lovely book.
