The House of Quiet

Gr 8 Up–After her younger sister, Magpie, receives the mysterious procedure that is meant to grant her powers and lift her family out of poverty, she goes missing. Birdie uses her station and training as a maid to infiltrate her sister’s last-known location, the House of Quiet. There, she finds a handful of rich teens who somehow have powers despite never receiving the procedure. Not willing to give up on her sister, Birdie begins investigating the house and its residents and starts to realize that none of them are what they seem; there is something deeper and darker than she ever imagined occurring in the house. This refreshing, dark, Gothic fantasy is deliberately slow-paced, vague, and disorienting, leaving readers on edge and turning the pages. While Birdie is the main character, the story is told from the perspective of other teen residents in the house. This can be frustrating at first, until readers start to pay attention to the tone and actions of these characters—they become easy to distinguish, based on their powers and individual quirks. The book is odd, cryptic, and claustrophobic at times, and that is what makes it enticing. It touches on themes of class, war, medical horrors, found family, and trauma in a way that young readers will grasp. While there are two romance subplots, one LGBTQIA+, they are light despite the heaviness of the world, feel natural amongst the teens, and don’t detract from the central mystery. The conclusion is a bit lackluster, but it does leave the door cracked open to expand the world.