The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

Where should I start? This book takes you on a wild adventure. From horror, to ghostly, to immaculately written. This book was one of the best books I have ever read, and I grew an emotional attachment to the ghostly character. It takes a lot for me to grow an attachment with any book I read, seeing how I give away my books after I've read them. I don't find that I enjoy rereading any books, but this specific book I could read for the rest of my life and still love it, even if I can guess what's going to happen before it happens.

Let me start with a general overview of the book itself: Delia, the main character, and her family generally move into a new home. It definitely is not your typical home you would picture, as it was nickname Hysteria Hall for a reason. The home once was an asylum, for "troubled" girls. Little do we know, the asylum likes to trap those troubled girls. It does this in a horrifying way, and the description for this was no less than amazingly written. I was easily able to escape into this world with Delia. As Delia meets her frightening death, you can feel the grief that sets in through her mother and family as you continue reading the book.

As you come to find out, Hysteria Hall is originally called the Piven Institute. It was founded in 1886, by Delia's great grandfather. But you see, throughout the entire book you never expect what you find happens next. I personally never expected the main character to die out right in the beginning of the book, but I also found this rather refreshing. You see typically we always state "they're the main character, they can't die." But they can, and sometimes they do. Sometimes this serves a greater purpose for the storyline, especially for a book about anything haunted.

I find that many people enjoy stories about hauntings and the paranormal during the typical fall times, but I enjoy them throughout the entire year. I have become partially biased towards haunting stories, experiencing them myself over the years. It never ceases to intrigue me, or amaze me at the amazing stories you can find through fictional books, as well as real life happenings.

What's the general purpose for the book? After the main character dies suddenly in the beginning, and as you begin to grow an emotional attachment to Delia and all that her family feels throughout the story, you discover that Delia is meant to destroy the same evil that took her, as well as many of the other girls that haunts the halls. Personally, being able to live in a gigantic haunted asylum would be fun, but fictional story or not, evil tends to lurk there and it isn't the best idea.

Throughout the book Delia does everything in her power to try to get the family to leave. She tries to leave messages, but she can't. So she begins to vow to protect them instead. It becomes up to her and her new ghost friends to crack the secrets of the house, and to learn how to get rid of the evil that continues to try to trap those for all of eternity.

If you like a feminist angle to a book, this book is certainly for you. This book pays homage to the many things that did happen to women back in the 1800's. If you simply had too many opinions, you were deemed to have hysteria, and were locked away into an asylum, or institution, as most people like to call it.

Delia's younger sister Janie is relatively easy to grow an attachment to as well. I did, being an older sister to many girls, I personally loved reading through their relationship. Take your typical love hate relationship between two siblings, and you can understand their relationship very well. You may find that you cry at the end of the book. I certainly did, but it came out to be such a beautiful story. I highly recommend this book. I give it five stars, and a 10/10 recommendation!

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