The spine-chilling tale begins when twelve-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother, Michael, learn that they’ll be moving to a refurbished old church in rural Maryland with their mother’s new husband, Dave, and their younger stepsister, Heather. Heather is an insufferable brat, but that turns out to be the least of the family’s worries. When she strikes up a friendship with Helen, the malevolent ghost of a seven-year-old girl who died in a mysterious fire more than a hundred years ago, things really heat up . . . and Heather’s unsettling threat, “Wait till Helen comes,” becomes a grim reality.
Horror Book Review Blog: Wait Till Helen Comes
Awkward kid, a church turned home, a cemetery, a burnt house, a traumatic past, the ghost of a pissed-off little girl and we have Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn. The story is told in the first-person perspective through the eyes of Molly, a pre-teen who, along with her younger brother, mother, and stepfather have moved into their new home, an old refurbished church. Molly was given the undesired and seemingly arduous task of being a big sister to Heather – a byproduct of the new marriage. Heather, to put it mildly, is rather odd and it is clear early in the book that she is harboring a secret. This, along with the new familial arrangement, brings resentment and tension among the new family members, in particular, Molly and Heather.
Wait Till Helen Comes is a story aimed at a younger audience. I went into this book half-knowing what to expect – a ghost story that was not going to succeed in scaring me. However, I know that had I read this in my adolescence it very much would have scared the crap out of me. Now, as an adult, there was no chance of that happening. Sure, there were some creepy-ish moments in the book but, the main problem I had was that the lead character (ghost), Helen, was very much prevalent and in your face throughout the narrative. There was little, if any, build-up to set the tone then one “scare” would lead into another, then another as if the author was trying to make up for the lack of tension and fill in the void.
Where Hahn succeeds and contributes immensely to the tension, in my opinion, is the harrowing backstory to both Helen and Heather that leads to the actions of both characters and how these actions develop the family’s relationships with one another. This aspect of the story, I felt, trumped the supernatural elements and, although it was primary, the prior superseded the latter. I wanted to learn more about Heather’s and Helen’s backstory, not just as exposition. In a way, Wait Til Helen Comes plays out more like a family drama rather than a supernatural-thriller which would have been OK too.
Again, these are the thoughts and ramblings of a man past the age of the book’s intended audience. I will say, however, that I did enjoy the book and can certainly see the appeal to the younger (much younger) crowd as reading the tale brought me back to a time when just looking at the cover would send chills down my spine. In my youth, I would conjure up images of Helen standing watch over me as I slept on my bed. Yes, this is what a pre-teen version of myself would have thought about, and that adrenaline mixed with fear would have been exciting. My five-year-old caught a mere glimpse of the trailer for the movie based on the book, and it scared the bejesus out of her so (she quickly got over it), to that end, I would say Wait Till Helen Comes accomplishes what it sets out to do. I know that this book will be hanging out on the bookshelf until my daughter is older and brave enough to sit under the light of a lamp or curled beside a crackling fire to open up and read Wait Till Helen Comes.