When I read middle grade books,I always try to think of how I would have viewed the book as a child, and for me I know I wouldn't have enjoyed this one very much.

I picked it up, for the spooky aspects, but unfortunately the spooky was very downplayed. A group of kids stumble upon an old house boat and at the bottom is a mysterious well, with some mysterious dark liquid swirling around inside of it. So of course these 12 year olds, touch it. I mean that is realistic lets be honest, some kids can be so nonchalant about certain situations.

Upon touching this stuff weird things begin to happen and what do they do, yup they continue touching it haha. Now this is where the weird and creepy was suppose to start forming but it sadly wasn't either of those, the danger and the creepy was very downplayed and very safe, some of these figments were just silly, so when the scary ones actually showed up, they vanished quickly.

One of the things that bothered me most, was the lack of information being provided through the children's discovery of this mysterious liquid and houseboat. We were giving bread crumbs about trinkets and odds and ends in the house as well as having certain similarities in photos pointed out, but it was never really built on until the end with a rushed half-hearted explanation. So much focus went into creating the figments that it almost feels like the authors themselves where unsure how to explain what the liquid was actually doing, or how it came to be, so they just ignored it, and then when they did try to explain it, magically all the books and documents the kids found where ruined.

The final event was also very lackluster, they did one of those vague ending battle scenes, where the kids fought it, but the readers weren't really given details about how it went down. They just jumped inside and magically they over powered it? but like what was over powered? It just didn't feel like there was enough explanation about how they "beat" the monster.

The characters were all likable, [Tyler was my favorite, that kid was hilarious] They also had a lot of interactions that were very normal and realistic for these kids, like being wary of an old friend who came back after allowing a bully to bully one of the kids. The struggle certain characters had with trusting each other, the recklessness of others actions. There was great character development for one character in particular and I actually loved the direction his story arc went.

Its a simple fun story, but don't expect anything really explained or go in thinking your getting something super scary and creepy. its lighthearted scary at best.