The Screaming Staircase
Ratings105
Average rating4.2
DNF - Page 44
Why?
She was prettier than me, round-cheeked, small-nosed, with a full-lipped mouth and large, imploring eyes. She looked like the kind of girl I'd always instinctively disliked - soft and silly, passive when it mattered, and, when it didn't, reliant on her charms to get her way.
Do I really have to explain any more? (Do note that this was a ghost Lucy was describing, who was probably murdered.)
Besides this, I wasn't feeling the book. It's too cerebral for a horror/ghost story. There's no emotion to the way the main character tells it.
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This is the first middle grade book I've read in....a long time. Like a long, long time. I always read ahead of my peers when I was in school, so I was out of middle grade by like...5th grade? Either way, it doesn't matter, not really. I picked The Screaming Staircase up simply because I'd seen the TV show and wanted more of the characters. (And not to mention that I absolutely loved Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus series.) Well, color me absolutely not surprised at all because I loved this book.
Look, if you need a break from the adult world and want something that's funny, charming, and sometimes quite spooky, this is what you want to read next. Stroud stretches his writing chops here creating a whole parallel world to ours that is plagued with a huge problem: ghosts are coming back from the dead and killing people. For some reason, only children can see (and fight) the ghosts. Adults just...die. Stroud sets this world up quickly and without any impossibly huge info dumps – everything you need to know is given to you in bite-sized pieces between everything else.
Our heroes are Anthony Lockwood, a rather mysterious young man who owns his own ghost hunting/fighting business. George Cubbins – a large boy who focuses on research and irritating everyone. He was quite annoying, but not enough to degrade my experience of the book. Lucy Carlyle, whose POV the books are told, is a girl who is running away from a horrible experience. Together, they try to solve a murder-mystery. Is it predictable? Maybe a little, but you have to remember who the audience is, and well, predictable does NOT mean badly written. It didn't lessen my enjoyment of this book at all to know where it was going.
This was so much fun. I'm absolutely going right onto the next book in the series.
Toen mijn peetdochter laatst kwam logeren, was ze helemaal geobsedeerd door Lockwood & co, de boekenreeks, maar ik leerde dat er ook net een tv-serie op Netflix was uitgekomen.
Over de boekenreeks had ik al eerder gehoord. Ik was ooit zelfs al eens begonnen in het eerste audioboek, maar ik was er toen niet voor in de stemming en legde het aan de kant voor later. Nu leek het perfecte moment te zijn voor later, zodat ik dit bijna samen met mijn peetdochter kon lezen.
En ik begrijp volledig waarom ze dit zo leuk vindt! Ik zou ook absoluut geobsedeerd zijn geweest toen ik zo oud was als zij.
Maar ook als volwassene heb ik met volle teugen genoten van dit eerste boek en ben zeker van plan de serie verder te lezen.
Het is belachelijk goed geschreven en het voelt helemaal niet jeugdig aan.
Het is vlot, meeslepend en een beetje ondeugend, met een aantal dubbelzinnige grappen, die het voor een volwassene des te leuker maakt.
De intrige van dit verhaal gaat door het dak. Het is avontuurlijk, mysterieus, griezelig en brengt een charmante cast van personages tot leven, die hun eigen kleine gevonden familie-eenheid vormen, die voor elkaar door het vuur zouden gaan.
Mijn enige mogelijk punt van kritiek zou zijn dat ik me meer dan de helft van het boek heb liggen afvragen wat die titulaire schreeuwende wenteltrap was, aangezien deze pas vrij laat in het verhaal te pas komt. Maar dat is echt van minimaal belang, want ik was sowieso al volledig geïnvesteerd in de personages, de kennismaking met de wereld en alle zijmissies.
Aanrader voor al wie houdt van een goed spookverhalen doorspekt met humor.
4.5 ✨
Loved this! There were so many small cases and other details that didn't make it into the show. So many of George's sick burnsss didn't make it in either
I loved the whole book, and I am hooked. I especially loved the part where Lucy let the ghost out of the locket at the end of the book with no fear of it attacking her. I also love that Lucy can somewhat talk to ghosts. (Or maybe just to the one in the ghost jar? Who knows?)
This was so fun! I will admit that at times I did stop it because I got a little freaked out. A major reveal I was able to figure out but really I cannot recommend this enough.
Mr Stroud, thank you for that feeling of a ghost behind my back when I was reading.
Ghosts, ghosts and more ghosts.........oh wait on this particular universe, they are called Visitor and each one belongs to a class either Type One, Two or Three(I am assuming there are since there were some talks regarding this certain type).......and they can be captured or be seen by kids......just like in the “Real World”(again another assumption).......has to do with their unadulterated views in life until they get jaded by too much logic.......
Lockwood & Co, another agency that deals with Visitor, but unlike other agencies, this one is headed by Anthony Lockwood, and together with George Cubbins they are 2/3 of a unique triumvirate, the last one being Lucy Carlyle, aside from the three, there are no others, supposedly each agency has an adult to supervise and help, but not Lockwood & Co, the three operatives are enough for any assignment.......
This has a lot of potential, I was sincerely surprised by the pace of the story, the characters introduced, the antagonists(although not all antagonists are Visitors....), a refreshing way to look at ghosts and their hauntings.........and still mysteries abound.............a true recommendation for anyone who likes their ghost story, funny, witty but still scary as heck!!!!! Oh this is a YA, honestly I do not like YA, but due to the story, mystery and the characters, I am staying for the rest of the series!!!!
Jonathan Stroud takes a step back from his Bartimaeous trilogy to deliver something which is much more simple and thus younger. The writing style is as clean as ever and the magic/haunting system is explained fairly logically. Sadly, the benchmarks were set to high. So in the end it turns out to be a light read with some moments thrown in to keep you interested. Well onto the next on in any case
Warning do not read at night when you are alone! This one was pretty creepy. I couldn't put it down. It's written for a younger audience, but as a pre-teen I would have had nightmares from it.
This books was scary, funny and fantastic. I scare easy but I figured I could handle a middle grade and I did but that didn't stop my heart racing. If you haven't tried anything by Jonathan Stroud you need to fix that, I am so happy this is a new series.