This is a situation where I should have paid closer attention to the age range indicated by the publisher: Though I read a fair amount of young adult novels, I have less success with juvenile fiction. Additionally, I tend not to enjoy books which are marketed for "reluctant readers", as they tend to be so full of flash bang and frenetic pacing that I feel old reading them. My reading is not reluctant. That said, I am often charmed by kiddie horror, because it's such a strange and difficult project, trying to balance being legitimately scary with not scarring kids for life. The janjilons end up being both creepy and tragic, and Petronella is a peach. I liked Petronella and the Janjilons well enough, but I'm not in its real reader demographic.

This was a very odd book! I found the story fairly interesting, but the writing was absolutely terrible. It felt like reading a story that a grade six kid had written. It was wooden and stilted, a bit repetitive; all a bit too simple and unexplained. The story was good though! But I wouldn't recommend it because of the poor writing. I'm hoping the author really is only ten or eleven years old? If they'd waited a few more years and revisited this I reckon it could have been turned into something pretty good.