Even malevolent spirits conjured by witches for the purpose of creating mischief can be changed by the power of friendship. This is the plot of Hanna Alkaf’s delightful middle-grade debut, The Girl and the Ghost, which came out last year. Inspired by spooky elements of Malaysian folklore, the novel uses the relationship between a girl and her ghostly companion to explore some rather dark themes ranging from bullying to death, grief, and complicated family ties in a way that is accessible and engaging for kids and adult readers alike.
When a dark spirit called a pelesit appears in young Suraya’s bedroom one night declaring himself to be her inheritance from her dead grandmother, Suraya dubs him with the incongruous name of Pink and they immediately become best friends. Bound to Suraya by drinking her blood once a month, Pink offers her his supernatural services and promises to protect her from any enemies, but all Suraya wants from Pink is his companionship. Pink was created to be a dark spirit, however, and his malevolent nature is not so easily suppressed. At first, Pink unleashes his dark side against the girls who bully Suraya at school. But when Suraya’s friendship with a new classmate begins to overshadow her relationship with Pink, he turns his dark powers against his own master. Torn between protecting herself and losing her oldest friend, Suraya turns to her family’s past looking for answers about what and who Pink really is. But if she digs deep enough, she’s sure to find some skeletons in her family’s closet….
The Girl and the Ghost does a beautiful job of showing the humanity of a being that might otherwise be considered a monster. Though he usually takes the form of a discreet grasshopper, Pink’s true form is something large, clawed, and horrifying. His supernatural powers are designed to instill terror—he can call swarms of locusts, create illusions of insects and decay, and drive his victims insane with nightmares—and his natural inclination is to use them to do harm. But even a creature made for chaos is not necessarily evil, and Pink has agency over his own actions. Suraya accepts Pink for who he is, dark side and all, but she asks him to actively choose not to harm people—and believes in his ability to make that choice. Over the course of the novel, Pink grows as a character and learns to accept his agency rather than blaming his actions on his pelesit nature. And alternating chapters from Pink’s perspective allow the reader to view this character growth up close and to see the good in Pink before he even sees it in himself.
The novel also deals with the rather Gothic theme of reckoning with a dark family legacy. Suraya has a complicated relationship with her emotionally distant mother, and she comes to learn that her grandmother may not have been a very good person. When she travels to her ancestral home and the nearby cemetery, Suraya discovers a dark family secret and learns how grief and trauma left their mark on the women of her family. But even as Suraya joins in that grief, she rejects the family legacy of being broken people with broken relationships. Sometimes we need to dig up our skeletons, face them head on, and let others share the burden of grief in order to heal.
If you love powerful stories of family and friendship that aren’t afraid to go to some dark places, don’t miss The Girl and the Ghost! You can find it on shelves now at your favorite retailer, or order it online and support The Gothic Library using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve read it, be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments!