I’ve been on a YA supernatural reading kick lately, and got this one from Net Galley last month.

“The Unquiet” is the story of Corinne – or Rinn – Jacobs, a teen who moves with her mom to a new town and new school and is looking to start over. Rinn has some serious mental health issues, and is relieved to make new friends who are accepting and understanding. Not only are these friends popular and fun to be with, the boy across the street is also amazingly cute and interested in her. All is going well until strange things start happening down a deserted hallway at school. The teens are convinced that a ghost is haunting them and Rinn decides that she will get to the bottom of all the happenings.

I really enjoyed this novel, which I would recommend for high school and up (due to mature themes). I also felt Garsee, who is a psychiatric nurse by day, did a sensitive and thoughtful job in writing of the complexities of teens on medication and of mental health.

In this story, the ghost is haunting a deserted pool area which is fenced off, but the students still pass through this dark and deserted walkway to get to class as they are not allowed to “cut through the gym”. I found this rather hard to believe until I read in the afterword that Garsee bases this story on a walkway she had in her own school as a little girl. It, too, had a disused and deserted part over to the side that totally creeped her out and stayed with her, lending itself to this ghost story now.

This book trailer – set to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – might even be creepier than the novel!

Thanks, Net Galley and Bloomsbury USA, for my copy!