• Thrifted Book Review •

Title: THORNHILL

Author:

Pam Smy

Provided Summary(s):

A lonely girl in a new town.

A ghostly figure in the window.

A derelict old house.

and a mystery spanning the decades.

•

An orphan faces a bully alone and plots her revenge. Years later, a girl catches glimpses of a figure in the window of a burned-out and abandoned old house, and begins to unravel the mystery of Thornhill.

Art Style:

Original Price:

US $19.99 / CAN $27.99

Price I Paid:

$2.99

Page Count:

533

Time Taken To Read It:

3 hours (no breaks)

My Summary:

Warning Spoilers And Possible Trigger Warning!

The visual journey starts with a girl named Ella who just moved into a new house. And sees a girl around the property across from her new home. She goes out to investigate multiple times and each time she finds a doll an fixes it. She ends up finding a key that leads to a room in the abandoned house on the property. Ella goes into the room and finds a diary. She takes it home and reads it. Ella goes back to the house and the room to make friends with the Mary. The house catches fire mysteriously and she dies. It ends with a boy moving into the house Ella lived in and he sees the spirits of the two girls.

The written story is made up of diary entries written by a girl named Mary. In the 1980’s Mary was a 13 year old girl who lived in an orphanage. She was bullied a lot and was selectively mute. Her only friends were the dolls that she made. Everything was better until her bully at the orphanage was returned to the orphanage after being with a foster family. This girl acted kindly towards Mary for a while but as it turned out she was luring Mary into a false sense of security and all the girls in the orphanage ended up leaving Mary a bleeding mess in the cellar. These girls brutally bullied Mary and made her life miserable. The orphanage was closing and all of the girls in the home got adopted except for Mary and the bully. They were scheduled to be rehoused together and that didn’t settle well with either of them. The bully girl broke into Mary’s room and destroyed all of her dolls. Mary was furious. She lured the bully girl to the cellar and pushed her down the stairs. She locked the door and started to dump kerosene under the door. Fully prepared to light the house ablaze with both of them in it and was horrified at herself for thinking of killing someone. She let the bully girl out and she escaped. Mary then went into the cellar and killed her self because she didn’t want to leave the orphanage.

End Of Warning Spoilers And Possible Trigger Warning!

My Thoughts

I really enjoyed this book even though I wasn’t expecting to be as dark as it is. I loved the art style and the fact that it is in a diary style was intriguing to me. I also love how the author managed to portray two characters stories at the same time. That was something I’ve never seen. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes dark themed stories, mysteries, and the supernatural.