For the kids who are afraid—whether it’s of bullies or ghosts or grumpy moms, first days or bad days or everything in-between days. You have more courage than you know.

Thank you to my parents, who never told me “this book is too scary for you.”

~Dedication at the beginning and Acknowledgements at the end of The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

Well, my first reaction is to tell all but the most intrepid readers that this book is too scary and dark and psychologically twisty for you. This is not a Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost sort of story. It is instead a story steeped in Malaysian folklore and culture about a witch grandmother who bequeaths to her granddaughter a pelesit, a ghost-monster-demon that lives to serve and obey its master but also survives by sucking a bit of its master’s blood every month during the full moon. Yeah, it’s called a blood-binding, and yes, this is a middle grade fiction book.

Suraya is the granddaughter, and she lives in rural Malaysia with her widowed mother and the pelesit that Suraya names Pink. Pink is Suraya’s only companion and only friend, and even though Pink is a rather dark and brooding presence in Suraya’s life, he’s certainly better than nothing—until Suraya makes a real friend, Jing Wei, who is wealthy, happy, and obsessed with Star Wars. Pink becomes jealous, and essentially goes over to the Dark Side.

Other than Jing Wei and her sunny and heedless personality, there’s not much in this book to lighten the darkness. Bullies, demons, an evil exorcist, and tortures (think: nightmares, blood, and insect infestations) inflicted by one’s erstwhile best friend are the main aspects of the plot and characters, and the sort of happy ending doesn’t really make up for the nightmare inducing remainder of the book. I was strangely fascinated and at the same time repelled by this story. I wouldn’t recommend it to any middle grade readers I know. But there may be some who would enjoy it and identify with the deeper themes of betrayal and family dysfunction and overcoming the darkness within ourselves and our own families.