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    The Girl and the Ghost
    The Girl and the Ghost
    The Girl and the Ghost
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Girl and the Ghost

    Written by Hanna Alkaf

    Narrated by Mirai Booth-Ong

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    * Chosen as a 2020 Kirkus Prize Finalist for Young Readers' Literature! *

    A Malaysian folk tale comes to life in this emotionally layered, chilling middle grade debut, perfect for fans of The Book of Boy and The Jumbies.

    I am a dark spirit, the ghost announced grandly. I am your inheritance, your grandmother’s legacy. I am yours to command.

    Suraya is delighted when her witch grandmother gifts her a pelesit. She names her ghostly companion Pink, and the two quickly become inseparable.

    But Suraya doesn’t know that pelesits have a dark side—and when Pink’s shadows threaten to consume them both, they must find enough light to survive . . . before they are both lost to the darkness.

    Fans of Holly Black’s Doll Bones and Tahereh Mafi’s Furthermore series will love this ghostly middle grade debut that explores jealousy, love, and the extraordinary power of friendship.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 4, 2020
    ISBN9780063010178
    Author

    Hanna Alkaf

    Hanna Alkaf is the author of several books for kids and teens, including The Girl and the Ghost, Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, and the upcoming Tales from Cabin 23: Night of the Living Head. Hanna lives in Kuala Lumpur with her family and can be visited at hannaalkaf.com.

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    Reviews for The Girl and the Ghost

    4/5

    146 ratings13 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I got this to read aloud with my horror loving daughter, and she really enjoyed it up until the end - when she proclaimed it to be "too sad" It was really dark in some places, and more gruesome than I was expecting - leaving me going "oh, gross" and my daughter not blinking at it, so I think for horror fans it would not be too much, but I don't read a ton of horror. I loved all the mentions of food!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Very engaging story full of humour and ghosts. Fun and lively characters and storytelling.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Narrator has a good skill to change tone for voicing a different characters and speaks with Malay accent. The story was fun and quite scary (for MG). I think that If you love City of Ghost by V E Schwab You will enjoy this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Ez a könyv egyszerre volt kedves és kegyetlen, vicces és szomorú, szívmelengető és creepy, és annyira nagyon élveztem minden egyes percét. A vége pedig… Mostanában túl sok könyv sirat meg, valami baj van velem, érzem.

      A szellemet, azaz Pinket, nagyon gyorsan a szívembe zártam, főleg, amikor az elején lényegében Suraya bébiszittere, és ki van akadva, mennyi bajtól kell megvédenie a kislányt. Imádtam a kettejük barátságát, még akkor is, amikor éppen nem voltak jóban. A vége csavar pedig összetörte a kis szívem, rendesen megsiratva, amire nem voltam felkészülve.

      Mindeközben pedig egy egészen más kultúrával és annak paranormális lényeivel is megismerkedhettem. Nagyon tudom ajánlani ezt a kötetet bárkinek!
    • 4/5
      Really love this story about family, friendship, love, and some cultures from malaysia.
    • 5/5
      Atmospheric and magical, Alkaf successfully transported me to Suraya's life in Malaysia with her remarkable world building. Accompanied with outstanding characters, Pink and Jing, their journey was delightful to follow.
    • 4/5
      A very cute middle grade book. Loved the malaysian folklore!
    • 4/5
      Oh poor poor Pink! I would've kept him if I was Suraya...
    • 4/5
      Nicely creepy and steeped in Malaysian folklore, which is a whole other level of creep. Loved that the characters reflected Malaysian mix of cultures -- Suraya is Muslim, Jing Wei is Chinese, and Pink is from an even older tradition. Loved Suraya's generous heart, and her refusal to harm others, even when bullied. Loved the compassionate ending and the healing path that is revealed.
    • 4/5
      This book kind of had a fairy tale vibe as I listened. Suraya is too young to realize what is happening when her grandmother's pelesit comes to serve her. Pink, as he is named by Suraya, has a wicked streak. Suraya has a strong moral core. Her life is difficult. Her mom, a teacher, is distant and far from nurturing. When she meets her first friend, Jing, she's happy for the first time. Pink, however, is jealous. When an outside threat comes, the three must work together to solve what seems an impossible problem! Malaysian culture is embedded in the book as are references to Muslim faith.
    • 3/5
      Love that it's by a Malaysian author and based on Malaysian legend, loved the sensory writing... in fact, I loved a lot about it, but it's a little slow and I'm finding it a hard sell.
    • 3/5
      Growing up, Suraya’s best friend has always been Pink, a pelesit—a kind of parasitic demon-ghost that feeds on the blood of its host—inherited from her witch grandmother. He’s her playmate, caretaker, and defender against bullies, but when Suraya makes her first human friend, Pink feels his relationship slipping away. Flaring insecurity unleashes his demonic nature, plaguing Suraya’s new friend with various horrors in an attempt to push her away. As Pink and Suraya struggle to hold on to that which is dearest to them, they discover the tangled roots of a troubled family history, heal their wounds, and grow. Alkaf’s (The Weight of Our Sky, 2019) middle-grade debut is unapologetically—and beautifully—Malaysian, its characters, setting, and story steeped in the culture’s folklore, language, religion, and food. As a ghost story, grounded in Suraya’s and Pink’s alternating points of view, it sizzles with tension and safe-but-ghoulish imagery (Pink’s MO is unleashing a swarm of creepy crawlers) without letting go of the heartfelt thread of love between a girl and her ghost.
    • 5/5
      This was the book I didn’t know I needed last night. I’m not from Malaysia but there are enough similarities between Malaysia and its neighbor Singapore for me to feel at home when I was reading this. I couldn’t sleep last night and while a ghost story wasn’t exactly what I was looking for at that moment, the library ebook was due in a couple of days. So The Girl and the Ghost it would be thenThe ghost is a pelesit, a dark spirit who takes the form of a grasshopper to stay hidden. His master, a witch, dies and he has to find a new master. The witch had told him a pelesit needs a master to control his craving for destruction and chaos. As he is bound by blood, the new master has to be of the same blood. And so it is to be Suraya. Suraya is a lonely child, her father is dead and her mother withdrawn.“Maybe that was what she was. The durian of friends. Maybe people would learn to like her one day. Maybe she just had to meet the right ones.”So quickly she and Pink become inseparable. But Pink’s dedication to her has a dark side as he lashes out relentlessly at those who bully her, then takes an even darker turn when she makes her first real friend.It was a dark and endearing read, full of the sights and sounds and smells of Malaysia. It was a beautiful and emotional tale of friendship and family. It made me long for home and made me tear up as I thought of my family and wished I could be there for them, especially this week, with the passing of my grandmother