THE SECOND-BEST HAUNTED HOTEL ON MERCER STREET - Cory Putman Oakes

3.5 stars

What does a small mom-and-pop haunted hotel do when a big chain business comes into town? Up their game, of course. Ghost-y style. This was so fun to read!

Concept: ★★★★★
Pacing: ★★★
Characters: ★★★ 1/2

Do you like ghosts? Do you like light-hearted fun? Do you like middle grade? If you answered yes to any of those questions, I'd love to recommend this book directly to you.

I picked this up on a whim from my local bookstore because I was immediately drawn in by the title, The Second-Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street. It's a mouthful (true) but it's also the kind of title that screams to be read (ahhh!).

In this book, you can expect: a 6th grade girl doing her best in a family reeling from a recent tragedy, an eclectic family of ghosts that leap off of the page, a dramatic showdown between characters that reminded me heavily of the sense of drama in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and a whole lotta cool dialogue surrounding ghosts and their integrations into our "living" society.

Read it! I promise you'll have a good time.

ABOUT THE BOOK: 
A family-run haunted hotel’s livelihood is threatened when a bigger haunted hotel opens nearby in this hilarious, spooky story...

Twelve-year-old Willow Ivan’s family has run the Hotel Ivan for four hundred years. Through thick and thin, they’ve held on tight to their title as the Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street. That is, until the Hauntery—a corporate chain of haunted hotels—moves in down the street. As the Ivan’s business fades, so do their ghostly staff. And Willow begins to worry that The Ivan’s days are numbered.

Then Willow meets Evie, a Hauntery ghost who’s forced to play the part of a Spooky Little Girl even though she longs to be a Terrifying Phantasm. So when Willow offers her a job at The Ivan, Evie accepts—but she doesn’t tell Willow that she’s still working for The Ivan’s competition, for fear of losing her new job and friend.

Together, the girls come up with a plan to save The Ivan. But with The Ivan ghosts already fading and Evie’s secret threatening to come out, will it be too late?