Book Review: Tighter by Adele Griffin.

Product details:
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release date: May 10th 2011.
Hardcover, 216 pages.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Ages: YA
Source: Received from author for review

When 17-year-old Jamie arrives on the idyllic New England island of Little Bly to work as a summer au pair, she is stunned to learn of the horror that precedes her. Seeking the truth surrounding a young couple's tragic deaths, Jamie discovers that she herself looks shockingly like the dead girl—and that she has a disturbing ability to sense the two ghosts. Why is Jamie's connection to the couple so intense? What really happened last summer at Little Bly? As the secrets of the house wrap tighter and tighter around her, Jamie must navigate the increasingly blurred divide between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Brilliantly plotted, with startling twists, here is a thrilling page-turner from the award-winning Adele Griffin.

As soon as I read the creepy synopsis for Tighter by Adele Griffin I knew that I had to read this book, better yet, even though I have never read anything by Griffin before, I had a good feeling that I would love Tighter, and oh, how I did! I am a sucker for ghostly tales, especially those that have gothic undertones, and are set in big old houses, where fear and menace lurk around every corner. It’s safe to say that I love a good fright, and so naturally, I read this late at night. And it is a testament to this book and to Griffin’s writing, that while reading Tighter on a balmy summer night in June, it gave me chills and sent shivers down my spine. Oooh, it is really that good! Ghostly, gothic, haunting and menacing, this book reeled me in and didn’t let me go until I was done.

Seventeen year old Jamie Atkinson is not in a good place. Haunted not only by chilling nightmares and visions that constantly disrupt her sleep, but also by a broken heart, she needs to escape a dull summer stuck at home with her parents, with no friends and no boyfriend to keep her occupied. Jamie’s solution to all her problems is to lose herself in a haze of prescription pills, but her mother provides an altogether healthier resolution to her “mopey” behaviour when she sets her up with the perfect job as a summer au pair on the idyllic New England island of Little Bly, where she will reside at Skylark, a grand old house, and take charge of Isa, a sweet girl who lives in her own little world. Not so sweet is Isa’s know-it-all brother Milo, and Connie Hubbard, an ill-tempered housekeeper who has nothing good to say about Jamie and who is constantly keeping watch over her. Those two, though, are the least of her problems, when she learns of Isa’s former au pair Jessie, a girl who Jamie bears a striking resemblance to, and her boyfriend Peter, who both died tragically a year before. It seems that something is not quite right at Skylark, and Jamie is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery as she stumbles through summer in her drug-fuelled haze, shadowed by an eerie presence and haunted by ghosts only she can see.

While I haven’t read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, on which Tighter is loosely based, and so can’t make comparisons between the two, I will say that Tighter, with its ominous, eerie presence, big old house, an imposing housekeeper, reminded me in many ways of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Fans of this one will also enjoy the psychological torment of The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield which is similarly beautifully written and has a similar gothic feel. That said, while I’ve read a lot of gothic ghost stories, very few have caught me unawares as this one did. Nothing could have prepared me for the revelations in this book, and while I’m usually pretty good at figuring out plot twists in books of this kind, I will admit that this one left me shocked. I had no idea! I was left speechless by the shocking revelations here, and I have since re-read most of the book and seen that the clues were there, but at the time they were so well hidden.

Tighter is a quick, engrossing read, and it certainly packs a punch. Griffin’s writing style is impeccable, fast-paced and taut, making the book a total page-turner. I read the final pages of Tighter, thinking that yeah, in the end everything made sense, and then with one final twist, Adele Griffin managed to shock me once more, and almost had me sleeping with the light on. Tighter is spooky, shocking and unputdownable. It will play on your mind long after you finish it. A must read!

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I first heard about Adele Griffin and Tighter over at Small Review (thanks Small - now we can be fangirls together!) and I just wanted to highlight this great Small Special on Adele Griffin that you can check out on the blog.  There's a great guest post by Adele over there that tells the story behind the cover of Tighter, and it's definitely worth reading!

Big thanks to Adele Griffin who noticed that I was dying to read Tighter, and offered to send me a copy. Authors are awesome! Needless to say, this didn't affect my opinion of the book, or this review in any way. I just fully loved it!!