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1Laina1312
So I've been trying to find this book for a while. It's about a girl who is being haunted/possessed by another girl who lived a long time ago. The girl gets black spots in her memories, time missing, that kind of thing, and I remember at one point her shoes are covered in mud when she wakes up, but she can't remember going outside or how they got like that. I think there's a scene where she's babysitting and blacks out, and the parents come home to find the baby's been crying for like half an hour or something like that, and she gets in trouble.
Ringing any bells? It would have been published in the late 90s, early 2000s, and it wasn't like a point horror or anything, I don't think. Might have had a red cover with the girl's face on it?
Ringing any bells? It would have been published in the late 90s, early 2000s, and it wasn't like a point horror or anything, I don't think. Might have had a red cover with the girl's face on it?
4HollyMS
I think I found it! I've been thinking about this book for awhile and have wanted to post about it here. The plot was really interesting. So, I hope this is it:
The Dark Garden by Margaret Buffie
The LT page isn't too descriptive though, so here's a link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Garden-Margaret-Buffie/dp/1553370910/ .
The Dark Garden by Margaret Buffie
The LT page isn't too descriptive though, so here's a link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Garden-Margaret-Buffie/dp/1553370910/ .
5Laina1312
Kmaziarz: Sorry, no, the MC was older. High school age.
Hollerama: I'm not sure... but I'll check that one out. Thanks!!! I am in Canada, so the library I used at the time would have had her books... I'll definitely order it to see! Thanks!
Hollerama: I'm not sure... but I'll check that one out. Thanks!!! I am in Canada, so the library I used at the time would have had her books... I'll definitely order it to see! Thanks!
6bookel
It helps to bump a previous post (add a comment) in case it has previously made suggestions that were ruled out. :)
7bookel
Did you fully eliminate this?
The Dark Garden
by Margaret Buffie
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/margaret-buffie/the-dark-garden/
Originally published in Canada, a first-rate blend of a ghost story and problem novel about Thea, 16, struggling to recover from traumatic amnesia after a bike accident. Released from the hospital, she returns as a stranger to a dysfunctional family she doesn't remember. She knows their old house, but her memories belong to another time, long before her family lived there. She sees evanescent figures, hears voices, and even seems to be someone else at times. Illness, insanity--or a haunting? With help from a sympathetic clergyman and a young, handsome neighbor, Thea uncovers and, in part, relives a long-ago tragedy involving a romantic triangle, a murder, and a madman. She also intercedes with her self-absorbed parents to free herself and her troubled younger sisters from the burden of their neglect. From material that might have become melodrama in less skilled hands, Buffie (The Warnings, 1991, etc.) creates a tightly knit, evocatively written, and lushly (but chastely) romantic thriller. The protagonists--living and dead--are distinctly characterized; a once beautiful, now weed-choked garden is simultaneously setting and symbol of lost happiness. Parallels between Thea's plight and that of her ghostly predecessor are clearly but unobtrusively drawn, and vivid sensory writing makes the fluctuations in Thea's state of consciousness perfectly convincing. A verse from Tennyson's ``Lady of Shalott,'' used as an epigraph, is woven through this exceptional entry in what is often a ``fluff'' genre. (Fiction. 12+)
http://umanitoba.ca/cm/vol2/no26/dark.html
CM Magazine review (Canadian site, searchable)
excerpt:
When one of the shadows asks me my name nothing comes -- just a crackling emptiness. The shadows change into people in pastel clothing who come and go and talk to me and are surprised when I answer them. But not as surprised as I am when the words that slide into my head turn out to be the right ones. They begin their tests. I show them that I can tell a lamp from a tree and a cup from a glass, but over the next few days and nights the white mist that is my memory never changes. At night they leave me alone, and I sink into the garden's green darkness with sweet relief.
In the daylight they come back and ask again and again -- do I remember Thea? Her parents? They tell me that Thea is her . . . my name -- Thea Austen Chalmers-Goodall. With a hyphen. I don't know her. I am certain I could never have been Thea Austen Chalmers-Goodall. With or without a hyphen.
I am no one.
Margaret Buffie Margaret Buffie is the author of the acclaimed YA ghost story Who is Frances Rain? In The Dark Garden, Buffie makes good use of an epigraph from the Lady of Shalott; various characters are imbowered in prisons real, psychological, and supernatural. More importantly, Buffie handles the dialogue and characters with a rare and welcome skill and assurance.
Thea, Buffie's sixteen-year-old protagonist, is in a grim situation -- she is an amnesiac who wakes to find herself in an unpleasant, barely functioning family, and half-possessed by the ghost of a long-dead girl. But near the surface there is a charm, which, combined with the well-drawn young characters, remind one of Doddie Smith's classic I Capture the Castle.
Thea has many tasks to juggle on her journey through her own dark garden. She must remember who she is -- although that seems less and less attractive the more she finds about her family. Her parents are progressively minded workaholics capable of saying things like, "We'll dialogue later tonight, okay?" The parents, Thea learns, see the family as a cooperative "unit" where everyone has their own areas of responsibly. (Thea's appears to have been doing all the work and child-rearing.)
One of her sisters resents her amnesia; the other, Wee (named after her urinary habits, not her size), has emotional problems that keep her acting the baby. Even Thea herself appears to have been a tiresomely dramatic adolescent before the accident that brought on the amnesia.
And then there is the ghost of Susannah, who disappeared mysteriously decades ago in the house where Thea's family now lives. Thea's experiences blend with Susannah's memories to make her grip on reality even more tenuous.
In order for Susannah (and Thea) to find peace, they must solve the mystery of Susannah's disappearance. This part of Thea's struggle is both traumatic and thrilling, partly because it involves Lucas, an intriguing and attractive young man who is trying to find his own peace despite the psychic gifts that allow him to hear the voices of the dead and the living.
In the end Thea finds a way out of the dark garden -- the prisons of the family, the psyche, and the supernatural -- for both herself and Lucas.
There might be one element too many in this supernatural-coming-of-age-mystery-romance, but Buffie balances them all implausibly well. There are real chills here, and real characters and problems that young readers, especially girls, will be able to relate to.
Highly recommended.
The Dark Garden
by Margaret Buffie
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/margaret-buffie/the-dark-garden/
Originally published in Canada, a first-rate blend of a ghost story and problem novel about Thea, 16, struggling to recover from traumatic amnesia after a bike accident. Released from the hospital, she returns as a stranger to a dysfunctional family she doesn't remember. She knows their old house, but her memories belong to another time, long before her family lived there. She sees evanescent figures, hears voices, and even seems to be someone else at times. Illness, insanity--or a haunting? With help from a sympathetic clergyman and a young, handsome neighbor, Thea uncovers and, in part, relives a long-ago tragedy involving a romantic triangle, a murder, and a madman. She also intercedes with her self-absorbed parents to free herself and her troubled younger sisters from the burden of their neglect. From material that might have become melodrama in less skilled hands, Buffie (The Warnings, 1991, etc.) creates a tightly knit, evocatively written, and lushly (but chastely) romantic thriller. The protagonists--living and dead--are distinctly characterized; a once beautiful, now weed-choked garden is simultaneously setting and symbol of lost happiness. Parallels between Thea's plight and that of her ghostly predecessor are clearly but unobtrusively drawn, and vivid sensory writing makes the fluctuations in Thea's state of consciousness perfectly convincing. A verse from Tennyson's ``Lady of Shalott,'' used as an epigraph, is woven through this exceptional entry in what is often a ``fluff'' genre. (Fiction. 12+)
http://umanitoba.ca/cm/vol2/no26/dark.html
CM Magazine review (Canadian site, searchable)
excerpt:
When one of the shadows asks me my name nothing comes -- just a crackling emptiness. The shadows change into people in pastel clothing who come and go and talk to me and are surprised when I answer them. But not as surprised as I am when the words that slide into my head turn out to be the right ones. They begin their tests. I show them that I can tell a lamp from a tree and a cup from a glass, but over the next few days and nights the white mist that is my memory never changes. At night they leave me alone, and I sink into the garden's green darkness with sweet relief.
In the daylight they come back and ask again and again -- do I remember Thea? Her parents? They tell me that Thea is her . . . my name -- Thea Austen Chalmers-Goodall. With a hyphen. I don't know her. I am certain I could never have been Thea Austen Chalmers-Goodall. With or without a hyphen.
I am no one.
Margaret Buffie Margaret Buffie is the author of the acclaimed YA ghost story Who is Frances Rain? In The Dark Garden, Buffie makes good use of an epigraph from the Lady of Shalott; various characters are imbowered in prisons real, psychological, and supernatural. More importantly, Buffie handles the dialogue and characters with a rare and welcome skill and assurance.
Thea, Buffie's sixteen-year-old protagonist, is in a grim situation -- she is an amnesiac who wakes to find herself in an unpleasant, barely functioning family, and half-possessed by the ghost of a long-dead girl. But near the surface there is a charm, which, combined with the well-drawn young characters, remind one of Doddie Smith's classic I Capture the Castle.
Thea has many tasks to juggle on her journey through her own dark garden. She must remember who she is -- although that seems less and less attractive the more she finds about her family. Her parents are progressively minded workaholics capable of saying things like, "We'll dialogue later tonight, okay?" The parents, Thea learns, see the family as a cooperative "unit" where everyone has their own areas of responsibly. (Thea's appears to have been doing all the work and child-rearing.)
One of her sisters resents her amnesia; the other, Wee (named after her urinary habits, not her size), has emotional problems that keep her acting the baby. Even Thea herself appears to have been a tiresomely dramatic adolescent before the accident that brought on the amnesia.
And then there is the ghost of Susannah, who disappeared mysteriously decades ago in the house where Thea's family now lives. Thea's experiences blend with Susannah's memories to make her grip on reality even more tenuous.
In order for Susannah (and Thea) to find peace, they must solve the mystery of Susannah's disappearance. This part of Thea's struggle is both traumatic and thrilling, partly because it involves Lucas, an intriguing and attractive young man who is trying to find his own peace despite the psychic gifts that allow him to hear the voices of the dead and the living.
In the end Thea finds a way out of the dark garden -- the prisons of the family, the psyche, and the supernatural -- for both herself and Lucas.
There might be one element too many in this supernatural-coming-of-age-mystery-romance, but Buffie balances them all implausibly well. There are real chills here, and real characters and problems that young readers, especially girls, will be able to relate to.
Highly recommended.
8MyriadBooks
Related posts:
(2010) http://www.librarything.com/topic/88316
(2012) http://www.librarything.com/topic/153616
(2010) http://www.librarything.com/topic/88316
(2012) http://www.librarything.com/topic/153616
