Review: The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow by Jessica Haight & Stephanie Robinson

I have been following the blog of these lovely authors for years now, but had yet to read their lovely book. I was lucky enough to get an ARC of their second book, and I knew I had to finally buy the first one and read it. Which I now have. And I'm glad I gave this book a try. The artwork was lovely. And the characters too.

Sadly, I didn't love this book. I'm going to try my best to share the reasons for why. I wish I had enjoyed it more than I did, but I also did like this book. It was not perfect, but it was a pretty fun story, and I liked the mystery a whole lot. The ending was a bit too nice for me, though. Wish it had been a bit more scary and evil, haha.

I'm actually unsure about what I wish to rate this book. Struggling between two and three stars. I think I will go with three. Because while I didn't love this book, I also did not hate it, and I found it to be an easy and fast book to read. And I am so glad that I gave it a chance. And I am pretty excited about starting the second book next. I'm hoping that it will be amazing. I also really liked reading about these characters. The book is told from the point of view of Fairday. She is eleven years old, and have just moved an hour away with her family. Into a big and sort of haunted house. Which I found to be all kinds of awesome. I must mention why I didn't fully enjoy this one. I simply did not connect with the writing. Had issues while reading it; wasn't fully bad, but not great either.

I don't know where to start with this book. I'm not going to share too much about it, as the book wasn't all that long, and I am not sure what I wish to share about it. But I will talk about a few things. This book tells the story about Fairday, and how she just moved to this new town. She's starting school, and there was a little bit of focus on that. Some bullies, which was a little cliche, yet kind of interesting too. She is missing her best friend, Lizzy, a whole bunch, at all times. Though she manages to make a new friend, Marcus.

I did like reading about the friendships in this book. But because it was pretty short, and I didn't fully like the writing, I did have a bit of a hard time loving their friendships. Did not really see all the affection and such, and I felt like it focused too little on that. But at the same time, I adored reading about Fairday and Lizzy together. They seemed like great friends. And they have been solving mysteries together for years. I loved that. Just wish I had felt a bit more of a connection with all of the characters. Still, I did like them.

The story is about the haunted house that Fairday has moved into. She starts noticing weird things right away, and she's excited and frightened to figure out what everything means. I enjoyed that her and Lizzy tries together to work it all out, understanding different clues and such. I liked how they included Marcus in their investigation too. The book was creepy at times, I liked that. There is an interesting story about the house from years ago. Wish it had been more scary, but it was good too. And I ended up enjoying it.

I'm glad that I gave this book a try. I feel a bit disappointed that I didn't love it more, like I had hoped, but I'm also glad that I did not hate it either. It was pretty exciting to learn the secrets of this old house, and figuring out everything that had happened in the past. Like I mentioned, the ending was a bit too happy for me, but it was good too, and I did like the end to the mystery. The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow was a short but fun read. And I do think that a lot of people will enjoy it, so I really think you should give it a try.

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