J. Kasper Kramer is the author of the acclaimed novel The Story That Cannot Be Told as well as The List of Unspeakable Fears. She's an author and English professor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has a master's degree in creative writing and once upon a time lived in Japan, where she taught at an international school.
Title: The List of Unspeakable Fears
Author: J. Kasper Kramer
Publisher: September 14th 2021 by Atheneum
Genre: Middle-grade
Buy Links: Amazon/ Barnes and Noble/ BD/ Goodreads/ Indiebound /Audible /Indigo
The War That Saved My Life meets Coraline in this chilling middle grade historical novel from the author of the acclaimed The Story That Cannot Be Told following an anxious young girl learning to face her fears—and her ghosts—against the backdrop of the typhoid epidemic.
Essie O’Neill is afraid of everything. She’s afraid of cats and electric lights. She’s afraid of the silver sick bell, a family heirloom that brings up frightening memories. Most of all, she’s afraid of the red door in her nightmares.
But soon Essie discovers so much more to fear. Her mother has remarried, and they must move from their dilapidated tenement in the Bronx to North Brother Island, a dreary place in the East River. That’s where Essie’s new stepfather runs a quarantine hospital for the incurable sick, including the infamous Typhoid Mary. Essie knows the island is plagued with tragedy. Years ago, she watched in horror as the ship General Slocum caught fire and sank near its shores, plummeting one thousand women and children to their deaths.
Now, something on the island is haunting Essie. And the red door from her dreams has become a reality, just down the hall from her bedroom in her terrifying new house. Convinced her stepfather is up to no good, Essie investigates. Yet to uncover the truth, she will have to face her own painful history—and what lies behind the red door.
To say I'm a huge fan of J. Kasper Kramer is an understatement. Her debut book caught my eye in 2019 and has stuck with me since. At that time I was fairly new to reviewing books for sites like Netgalley and Edelweiss and of writing in debt reviews in general. Before that, they were all, "I love this book OHMYGOD so AMAZ." I haven't strayed far from my fangirl expressions of awe, but I have chosen to pick apart books a little better and get down to the nitty-gritty of why they were "so AMAZ."
I was lucky enough to fangirl enough to get sent an arc by the author herself (and she signed it OMG SO AMAZ) and I literally cried when my elderly dog sat on the book and bent the cover. I can't get too mad at him since he's partially deaf and my baby, but his health has been declining. This book touches upon grief and the fears we sometimes carry with us. If I were to make a List of Unspeakable Fears I would add: losing my dog at the top. But we all know we are not immortal (although dogs should be) and that it's how we deal with our losses that truly define our lives.
Essie is a fearful girl. She's cautious around almost everything and looks twice at unfamiliar people and things. Her anxiety only gets worse at night when she experiences night terrors. Her imagination runs wild when she suspects her new step-father is up to something. There are missing nurses on the island a strangely locked door in the manor she now shares with her mother.
"How you feel still-being scared all the time that could be a sort of sickness too. But now that I understand it, I can help you."
For Essie, it's not just overcoming her fears-it's controlling it. As someone with anxiety, you cannot simply tell them to get over it or to stop worrying. Essie suffered a huge loss and that stayed with her. Coping with that loss is something she needed, not someone to tell her to just stop feeling what she's feeling. This book is so important in that it portrays someone very real with a real illness that will not just go away, but with the right person to listen, it can ease her worries and I think that's what we all need: someone to listen. And this is especially true with children. They carry these things into adulthood and by the time, they've already lived with the problem so long that it feels almost natural. But if we can get to the root of the problem early on, we can save lives. I say this as a parent who wants nothing but the best for my child.
"The List of Unspeakable Fears," I say. "It doesn't really fit anymore."
"Why not? Sounds rather clever to me."
"Yes, but things are different." I smile. "Now I can say them out loud."
Overall, I enjoyed this book so much I may need to replace my bent paperback arc with a hardcover beauty for my shelf alongside THE STORY THAT CANNOT BE TOLD. I recommend this to middle-grade readers looking for a bit of a spooky read and to adults who need a reminder that a little bit of kindness and compassion goes a long way. We're all in this together.
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