White Smoke
Ratings29
Average rating3.8
The Haunting of Hill House meets Get Out in this chilling YA psychological thriller and modern take on the classic haunted house story from New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson! Marigold is running from ghosts. The phantoms of her old life keep haunting her, but a move with her newly blended family from their small California beach town to the embattled Midwestern city of Cedarville might be the fresh start she needs. Her mom has accepted a new job with the Sterling Foundation that comes with a free house, one that Mari now has to share with her bratty ten-year-old stepsister, Piper. The renovated picture-perfect home on Maple Street, sitting between dilapidated houses, surrounded by wary neighbors has its . . . secrets. That's only half the problem: household items vanish, doors open on their own, lights turn off, shadows walk past rooms, voices can be heard in the walls, and there's a foul smell seeping through the vents only Mari seems to notice. Worse: Piper keeps talking about a friend who wants Mari gone. But "running from ghosts" is just a metaphor, right? As the house closes in, Mari learns that the danger isn't limited to Maple Street. Cedarville has its secrets, too. And secrets always find their way through the cracks.
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3.5 Started slow but really careened towards the end to then just....fizzle out. I liked that this was a departure from her other books but she took on so many big themes (gentrification, Get Out specific racist town plot, anxiety & mental health, mass incarceration, decriminalizing weed, televangelism scams) that it ended up a little messy with a lot of hanging and/or underdeveloped plot threads.
i got so properly spooked by this book that my partner had to check the house for me to sleep properly lol
tiffany d. jackson is, in my opinion, the queen of the unsettling. it's a lot less blatant than in some of my other favorite unsettling books (never let me go, etc.) and thus much more scary when the twist is revealed. i am STILL thinking about monday's not coming and allegedly. still! it's been two years!
however, white smoke, which is an outright thriller novel, fell a little short for me in terms of my unfortunately high standards with regards to tiffany d. jackson novels. the eeriness was not as subtle this time around, and the signs of gentrification were a little obvious for my liking but at the same time not nearly explored as much as i would've liked?
i feel really conflicted with the ending and how the book wrapped up, but i still enjoyed the spook nonetheless
read for halloweekend: a host favorite
this is definitely one of my least favorite of tiffany d jackson's work but i adore almost everything she puts on and this had that same classic writing in here that i love from her. i enjoyed the conversations around addiction and gentrification and even divorce/blended families but i'm not really into haunted house stories in any medium so it fell flat for me there and the ending was so adrupt. i still had a good time but due to the nature of the story, it happened to just not be my favorite but if you love haunted house-type stories with an unreliable narrator that leaves you questioning if the house is actually haunted or not, you might love this one. speaking of unreliable narrators i loveddddd that aspect of the main character too
