Book Review: The House of Months and Years by Emma Trevayne

Summary:

10-year old Amelia Howling is not living the happy life she and her best friend Isabel dreamed up for themselves. As if moving in with her orphaned cousins wasn’t bad enough, the house is huge, drafty, and almost definitely haunted. However, Amelia quickly realizes there’s something more to the house than just weird noises and strange winds. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a grand adventure, the kind she’s only read about: from making a deal with a shadowy figure to sailing with pirates to walking the streets of 18th century London,  Amelia realizes that things might not be so bad at the calendar house after all. However, there’s more to her shadowy new friend than she realizes, and in the end, she must make a decision that will change her future forever.

General thoughts: Reading a book aimed for a younger audience was a nice change from some of the others I’ve read this year which have been geared for teens and young adults. Emma Trevyane does an excellent job of getting into the heads of the main characters, most of whom are children; she really seems to understand their irrationalities and the strange way kids see and think about the world. I’ll definitely be keeping this book around for the next time I need to write characters who are on the younger end of things.

Something else that was interesting to me was the undercurrent of suspicion I held towards the shadow man, Horatio. Although this was likely relatively obvious, as an older reader I have no idea if this is something young kids would pick up on. Horatio’s presence gave me mild anxiety every time he showed up, because I just knew there was something suspicious about what he was offering Amelia.

Things I didn’t like:

The pace was a little slow and it took me a while to get through, but otherwise it was a good read. Some character choices were not great, but I suppose that’s life- I didn’t really like that Amelia never made up with Isabel, but maybe that’s just me.

Overall rating: 5/10. Somewhat mediocre, a bit slow, and Horatio gave me anxiety the whole time, but I loved how Amelia and the other kids were written. I also liked learning about the concept of calendar houses, might be something worth looking into in the future.