For the last month I have been searching for a good YA horror novel. I'm not sure why I was craving it, but I do know that it was really hard to track something down that I really wanted to read. I pretty much gave up and then I stumbled across The Possession of Cassie Quinn. I was excited enough about the word "possession" in the title, and then I got even more excited when I saw that it was a Minnesota author pubbed by a Minnesota press.
The beginning of the book reads like a good horror movie - kind of quiet, almost eerie snapshots of this new house that Cassie and her family have just moved to. It gives you the feeling that there is a shadow over everything, but maybe you're just imagining things. Then, when apparitions start popping up and leaving messages, you know it's not just your imagination. Even though Cassie still thinks so. I appreciated Cassie and her disposition to find a reasonable explanation for messages left on the the mirror and the wall. It takes her a bit of persuasion to come to terms with a haunting, and not the fact that her possibly-evil stepsister isn't just trying to freak her out.
There's more to the book that chilling moments and building tension. Cassie and her stepsister, Ashleigh, quickly fall in with the group of friends who knew the boy who died in the woods outside their house. They offer the background story - a story that I think would have been just as thrilling and terrifiying to read. There are quite a few secondary characters that play roles in this story, and Knutson handled that quite nicely. The novel could have easily been overwhelmed by the number of characters - but there is something in the safety of numbers when it comes to the paranormal that makes them all crucial to the story. And Ashleigh's friend, Amber, the self proclaimed spirit expert, is such a fun character to read.
This story hit close to home, quite literally. It takes place just about an hour or so from where I live. I also live right on the edge of the woods, like Cassie does. The woods are indeed terrifying. Just walking by them at night freaks me out a bit; I can't imagine actually going in them when it's dark. Knutson utilizes the over-active imagination that kicks in when in proximity to a setting like this in order to create a really great setting. Even better, I had ghosts of my own when I was a teenager. I used to have a group of friends come over and we'd hope for the ghosts to show themselves. Reading this book just brought out that incredible teen energy, twinging with nervous anticipation.
I was reading this book half expecting my ghosts to reappear and thinking I'd lift my head and there'd be messages burned into my wall. The story behind the spirits haunting Cassie is rich and full of the potential of more to be uncovered. The ending in itself is worth reading the book for. Thankfully, there will be a sequel, out in June 2013, because I am dying for more of this story after the way it ended. This was a great debut and exactly what I was hoping for when I was looking for good YA horror.
