It's a ghost story, but also a story about family relationships, and about growing-up. An engrossing, chilling read, but I'm not sure how everything ties together.

Celine Kiernan has penned a middle/early high school ghost story with lots of spooky atmospherics and some decent characterizations, but not much else. The book fails to deliver on the early promise of its first line, “We were watching the telly the night Nan burnt the house down.” The excitement of the first chapter is seldom reached again, nor is there much exploration of how, or even why, a grandmother suffering from dementia turned arsonist. The fire was a merely a plot device to get the family to move to a haunted house.

Copious descriptions of physicality and moody musings are no substitute for plot development, and many leads that could have been turned into motifs or themes of real interest go cold. What is the theme of this book? It is unpleasant in the zone between death and life; don’t go there. The only readers likely to love this book are avid ghost story fans with a penchant for Irish slang and family cuddles.

Full review to come. I'm vacillating between 4 and 3.5 stars...Loved the beginning and middle, but once the story became more solution-based (trying to avoid spoilers), it lost me. Overall a good read, especially for upper-middle grades in search of a story with horror/thriller elements.

Kiernan's novel is a good fit for a broad range of teen readers looking for a chilling ghost story built upon a touching sibling relationship. Patrick and Dom (twins) and their family, reeling from the fire that destroyed their home, journey to the coast where a spirit takes up residence in Patrick's twin. Kiernan's pacing is exquisitely suspenseful, and his ghost is truly chilling yet tragic. But what sticks with me most are the characters. Dom and Patrick are loving and supportive of each other, while also being realistic young teen boys, often hesitant to show affection or express fear. Their relationship with their much younger sister is sweet and believable, and their parents are complex, flawed adults, struggling to hold themselves and the family together, and arguing about the future. Teens and tweens who like a good ghost story will enjoy this one, but fans of realistic fiction with a dash of suspense will also find much to like here.

*shudders* Very creepy, very suspenseful, very interesting. But not super well-written, and the All Quiet references were erroneous and stretched. The plot also felt quite "out there," but it kind of worked.

Three and a half stars, but I am being generous because of the awesome cover. I really liked most of this novel as it had a good creepy feel to it and I liked that it was so Irish (without being changed or more geared for American audiences as they sometimes do). It was never really clear why the parents were so clueless about this whole thing and the plot got a bit muddled in some parts, but on the whole it was a satisfying read.

In INTO THE GREY, Patrick and his family relocate to a musty old cottage after a fire destroys their home and belongings. Unbeknownst to the family, the cottage is already inhabited by a supernatural presence. The ghost, a disturbing young boy, is determined to claim Patrick's twin brother, Dom, as his own. Pat, terrified he's lost Dom to the spirit world, fights to make sense of history, his mysterious dreams, and the dark space between life and death known as the Grey. This haunting ghost story will keep readers up well into the night, slightly afraid and contemplating the transcendent power of friendship and familial love.

Full review to come closer to release.

Oh man. This book. What can I say about this beautiful book?
Alright, well first off I picked up this book by chance at the library because it had a pretty cover and spine. I stuck it in my basket and it sat by my desk for about 4 months before I really touched it again. I don't know if I'm glad I saved the best for last or if I wished I had read it first. Either way I'm happy it had such a pretty cover.
Sometimes a book is so beautifully written that I just have to sit back and bask in the fact that I'm basically reading poetry. I wish I could write like that. I aim to write like that. This book had me spinning in delight at how real and tragic the entire story was, while still having a language that felt foreign enough to take me to another world. I would read it again in a heartbeat. I would read it again after that.
First off TWINS. Anyone who knows me knows I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with twins. In real life, as a plot device, in movies, in fashion. I don't really care. Something about people born at the exact same time catches my interest. Add tragedy and I'm bound to take a second look. Add something supernatural and hell I'll walk out of the story with barely enough time to pay for it, trying to read it so fast.
But often they fall short of my expectations quickly. This one didn't. Nope, it exceeded them, giving me every ounce of creepy, overly connected, inexplicably bound twin action I could handle and then some. Thank you Celine Kiernan. I'll be checking out every other book you've had any part of.
It had shades of A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, but only enough that were I to see someone reading it, I would walk up and be like 'hey. do you know what you need to read? Like, yesterday? Into The Grey.'
I've got to go marvel over this on my own terms. I give this book 5 stars. 100 percent. Just read it, you'll understand.
Or you won't and that's fine by me. I'll just be sitting over here reading it again.

http://librarianosnark.blogspot.com/2014/08/review-into-grey.html

This was really quite original and frightening and sad and lovely.