Reviewed by Kate Champlin
Content Warnings: References to current and historical ableism.
Meg Eden Kuyatt has given us another winner. Like Good Different, The Girl in the Walls, a novel-in-verse, stars an autistic tween protagonist and is suitable for middle-grade readers. As happens in Good Different, Kuyatt’s newest novel surrounds a fascinating main character with complex secondary characters who face their own difficulties. This time, our protagonist is V (short for Valeria, a name she never uses). She likes cartoon socks and unusual animals like the pink fairy armadillo. She’s developed her own art style based on anime and struggles to get her style recognized by her conservative art teacher. Readers will enjoy V’s infectious energy, the empathy she shows those around her, and her ability to self-advocate.1 Readers will also appreciate her supportive parents and the family members’ obvious love for each other. V’s father lets her use his earplugs to avoid loud noises, and her mother taught her that pretending everything is fine will never help.
Unlike Good Different, this novel deals directly with masking. Psychology Today defines masking as hiding neurodivergent traits, downplaying conflicts or needs, and giving socially-expected responses in conversations. While masking can help some neurodivergent people “pass”—often for the sake of appeasing neurotypicals—doing so tends to harm neurodivergent people’s mental health.2 The Girl in the Walls was inspired by a picture of a little girl labeled “Our Broken Doll,” in pencil; Kuyatt found this image in an antique store. Kuyatt, who is autistic, immediately identified with the image of the child. She wondered what her life would have been like if she’d been born in another time or to less supportive parents. Autistic people have faced misunderstanding, institutionalization, and abuse. Behavior modification programs meant to “fix” neurodiversity are still active in the United States.
In The Girl in the Walls, V’s grandmother Jojo has been taught to mask her own autism. She does it so thoroughly that V has no idea that she has a living autistic relative. Jojo has alienated another granddaughter, one whom she raised, a neurodivergent assemblage artist named Cat. Jojo criticizes V’s socks and behavior while refusing to use her nickname. V is dismayed at having to spend the summer with Jojo because V initially views her grandmother’s spotless home as a place of oppression, as in:
all white carpets
no stains (4)
During her summer stay with Jojo, V discovers a girl living in the walls. The girl looks alternately like V, like Cat, like Jojo, and like a fourth girl that V doesn’t recognize. She is always a little transparent. This girl inhabits places like the insides of walls and the attics where secrets are hidden. V is initially happy to meet the ghost. She enjoys the chance to create her real art, explore family secrets in the attic, and confide in someone new. V has recently lost a friend, Em, to peer pressure and differing definitions of growing up. Em has discovered gossip, and V just sees her comments as mean. As V plans pranks with the ghost, she realizes that they have a lot in common:
all the texts [Em] no longer sends,
all her online posts
I’m no longer in.
Maybe ghosts can recognize
ghosts, like how I can always spot
kids with brains like mine. (73)
Unfortunately, the ghost girl’s hostility toward Jojo quickly starts to scare V and the pranks soon begin to endanger everyone living in the house. In the process of confronting both the ghost and her grandmother, V discovers her own family history. Valeria, Jojo’s mother, was also autistic. Jojo learned to mask from her mother and then saw her mother dragged away to what would, during that time period, had been referred to as an asylum, where Valeria eventually died. It’s no wonder that Jojo is terrified of seeming less than perfectly “normal.” It’s also no surprise that Jojo knew about the ghost all along and simply hid her away with all of the other family secrets.
Armed with this new understanding, V can empathize with her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s struggles. She can also view her grandmother’s alienating behavior as a survival strategy. In fact, V must admit that she and Jojo actually have quite a lot in common. Although V is not proud of it, she masks at times. She also fights against the pressure to mask because of rejection from peers like Em. As V reflects:
I don’t want to think
I mask
that there are times
…
that I listen to the voices
and push down
my exploding V-ness
into a normal person box. (187)
The ghost is partly Valeria and partly a repository for all the loneliness and pain in the house and the family. Jojo notes that the house was built when her mother, Valeria, was born.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: SPOILERS FOLLOW]
In the end, the ghost tries to retaliate against those she feels are ignoring her by destroying the house and the living family within it. V becomes trapped in the attic but breaks free when she realizes that Cat has returned for her. Jojo ends the fight by looking the ghost in the eyes and acknowledging that she is seen. This acknowledgement allows the ghost to escape the house, freed from its confines and freed from her need for vengeance. V notes:
This whole time,
all she’s wanted
is what I’ve wanted.
What Cat wanted.
What Jojo probably wants, too. (258)
The Girl in the Walls is, in part, a powerful allegory about masking and emotional health. The novel is partly a history of autistic survival and ableist oppression played out through the generations of a single family. The novel is also the story of a remarkably likeable tween protagonist overcoming challenges with strength and creativity. V stands out as a role model for middle-grade readers. Both V and Jojo, who ultimately reestablishes relationships with her granddaughters and rediscovers her own art, stand as models of strong disabled women. The work is a winner on many levels.
Notes
- It’s also impossible not to like someone who wears socks with neon capybaras. I wish I could find a pair, and I also wish I had the courage to wear them.
- “The Strain of Masking: Reclaiming Our Neurodivergent Selves.” Read more at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/positively-different/202411/the-strain-of-masking-reclaiming-our-neurodivergent-selves
Title: The Girl in the Walls
Author: Meg Eden Kuyatt
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Date: 2025
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About the Reviewer
Kate Champlin (she/her) is a late-deafened adult and a graduate of Ball State University (Indiana). She currently works as a writing tutor and as a contract worker for BK International Education Consultancy, a company whose aim is to normalize the success of underserved students.