I really enjoyed this book. It follows the story of Kasia, who has ME/CFS. She is often confined to her bedroom and has recently seen a girl at the window of the house opposite. Kasia thinks the girl must also have witnessed the abduction that took place but when the police visit, they are told that there is no girl. Kasia is determined to work out what is going on.

I read this book in just over a day. It was slow enough to really get the feeling of how monotonous Kasia's life has become, but it didn't drag or stop being exciting. The balance of Kasia's poor health with her desperate need to do the "normal" teenage things was really well written. My only slight issues were the typos; breath instead of breathe and the number of American English words (e.g. diaper) which left me checking back to confirm the UK references quite a few times. 

In all, I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the author's first novel.

I could not get into this book. I know it seems well liked but for me the sentence structure seemed choppy. I am grateful for the opportunity, but I found myself getting frustrated with the choppiness more and more as time went on.

Kasia suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  A chronic condition that keeps her largely confined to her bed or her room.  She spends a lot of her time looking out her bedroom window at her quiet suburban street.  But one day she sees an abduction - a girl who is dragged into a car and kidnapped.  Did anyone else see what happened?  Kasia is sure she saw someone in the house across the street watching too.  But when the police check, the family who live there say that no-one else lives with them.  

But Kasia continues to see the "ghost" across the street looking out her window and is determined to solve the riddle of who else is living across the street.  Maybe it is a girl, like her, with an illness that stops her going to school?  Maybe it is someone in trouble and needs her help?

With the help of Nav, her next door neighbour, Kasia doesn't let her illness stop her from solving the riddle and finding out just what is happening in her supposedly safe street.

What I love about this book is the accurate portrayal of living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E.  I have been a carer for my daughter who has suffered from CFS for many years, starting from her early teens.  It is not often you read what it is really like to live with an "invisible" chronic condition such as CFS, the daily struggles and the psychological effects.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the advanced copy.

A great story, raising awareness of how hard life can be when you have ME and live a mostly housebound (often bed-bound) life and also how quiet streets can hold the darkest of secrets, but also the best of friends, The Girl in the Window has so much packed into it for just one short book. Although I found it didn't have as big an impact on me as I Have No Secrets did, I found it a really interesting and well written story of living with ME.

What I really loved about this book was how kind and caring Kasia was. I've been housebound myself for a while with Agoraphobia, so though I don't know how it feels like to have ME, I do know what it's like to be trapped at home and the boredom and the pain of living within four walls that Kasia feels is so very accurate. But despite how small her world has gotten she still reaches out to her neighbor and offers so much kindness to the lonely old woman who lives next door, completely changing the woman's life with a pureness of heart that is so wonderful to see. And of course that's not the only person Kasia reaches out to, there's the mysterious girl in the window....

The mystery of the girl across the street isn't so dramatic as I Have No Secrets. There's no real danger towards Kasia until near the end of the book. Most of the core mystery is just looking out of the window wondering about the girl she catches glimpses of, but this doesn't make it too slow like it would with another book. I think partly because Kasia's life is slow, really slow. The nature of her illness makes it so that it has to be. And so you fall quickly into Kasia's routine. It adds to the feel of the novel rather than detracts from it.

With this second fantastic book, Penny Joelson is fast becoming a favourite author of mine.

Penny Joelson won hearts with her debut novel "I Have No Secrets," which wonderfully articulated the perspective of a young girl with cerebral palsy in the midst of a page-turning mystery. She returns in "The Girl Who Wasn't There" with her now signature style. In it, we observe the journey of a young girl named Kasia who witnesses a possible crime while living with ME.

Joelson's work serves to familiarize the average reader with some of the mental and physical difficulties of those persons living with a chronic disease. The true gift of her writer, however, it that she does so while also portraying them as complete characters with thoughts, dialogues, and actions that any individual can relate to. This is a powerful stance for a children's author to take. "The Girl Who Wasn't There" reminded me of my initial thoughts when reading Joelson for the first time: these books would do well to be available in grade school libraries everywhere.

Not quite as masterful as her first, "The Girl Who Wasn't There" manages to capture the reader's attention, create thoughtful characters, and engage with an approachable writing style. However, some of the dialogue could use smoothing over and the author may have done better to focus her theme, which wavered with rushed attempts at diverse inclusions near its end.

Penny Joelson is one to watch. I will gladly recommend her work to parents of young readers for many years to come.

I really struggled to get through the repetitiveness of the narrator's tiredness. I know that her illness is a main part of her identity, but I found her hard to connect with. The overall writing is okay, but wouldn't be for struggling readers. The mystery of the girl who "wasn't there" was okay, but also didn't captivate me

The Girl Who Wasn't There
by Penny Joelson
Pub Date: 03 Nov 2020 
Read courtesy of http://netgalley.com


The Girl Who Wasn't There wasn't there for me until 88% through the book. I persevered since I wanted to find out about the mysterious girl who wasn't there, but I hadn't read the description of the book since I first requested the title, and I didn't read the "back cover" of my electronic version of the book. Therefore, I got 88% through the book with a misconception of whom the girl who wasn't there really was. That changed my whole perspective and point-of-view of what I'd been reading and finally made the book somewhat more interesting. (I'm trying not to make a spoiler, so don't read the tags on this post at https://pollyannapollyanna.blogspot.com/2020/07/book-review-girl-who-wasnt-there.html unless you want a spoiler.)

The writing wasn't sophisticated, i.e., probably appropriate for middle as well as high school.  However, I'm not sure it would suit reluctant readers; reading about a tired girl gets tiring. The ratio of the story between talking about chronic fatigue syndrome versus talking about the girl who wasn't there, if swayed more toward the girl and less about the syndrome, would have made for a more captivating, engaging read. 

On a more positive note, the story's secondary characters of the neighbor and her grandson were well thought out and appealing. On the other hand, the school friends of the main character were more like plot movers and distractions.

I wanted to like it more, but when most of a narrative book entails the many ways of describing how tired someone is, I find myself getting tired, too.