What books is this??

[mdreams]

Back in the early 2000s I was in like 6th or 7th grade and our English teacher had us read this book. Unfortunately I can’t remember what book it is.

All I do remember is that it was about a young boy who is in like a modern setting, who encounters this strange house that (if I am remembering correctly) was kind of alive?? And he meets some peculiar people. One of the people he meets is this young girl who he befriends and they work together to (possibly) escape the house?? I remember a random scene when the boy or the girl was trapped in a hole? The story gives me this Coraline feel about it. Kind of creepy.

I wish I could remember more about the story so that I could describe it better but I can’t. I need help finding out what this story was.

Comments

[calzephyr]

Could it be The Thief of Always? I typed "YA book house is alive" into Google and found this:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1770575-boy-ends-up-in-house-that-is-alive-and-he-cannot-leave-s

[fred_mouse]

Bit of a long shot, because I would rate these two as not appropriate for that age range, but either A Red Heart of Memories or its sequel Past the Size of Dreaming by Nina Kiriki Hoffman might fit the living house/escaping the past/creepy things/stuck in a hole (although I think it might have been a crawl space?). I haven't read them for some years, so I'm not sure which one suits your memory better.

My review for the second one was "Adults explore the reasons that their teenage selves hid in what turned out to be a haunted house. In a lightweight fantasy/supernatural escapist reading kind of way."