The House of Quiet by Kiersten White
Published by Delacorte Press on September 9, 2025
ISBN: 0593806573
Genres: Suspense
Format: Young Adult
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It’s a dark world in which parents can register their children for a procedure that will imbue them with an ability that could increase their odds of a better future, and Birdie’s parents opted in for their younger daughter Magpie. Birdie has  been searching for her sister ever since Magpie underwent the mysterious operation. Hearing that she might be in The House of Quiet, a brooding house full of powerful teens set in the middle of a peat bog, Birdie worms her way in as a maid to discover what really happened to Magpie.

Fans of Kiertsen White might be taken aback by the pacing of this YA dystopian novel, which is a truly slow burn. It moves along glacially, and while the worldbuilding and characters try their best to carry the story, the questions just keeping mounting with very little resolution. Readers who enjoy dream sequences might enjoy it, but that seems, perhaps, too niche to consider this one essential for a library collection.

Reviewed by Sarah Maciejewski, Patten Free Library, Bath