A review by whpltab
The Ash House by Angharad Walker

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

The Ash House tells a story about two boys, and their home, the Ash House. Dom, full name Freedom,  has lived there for as long as he can remember, and it’s his whole world, just as it’s the whole world for all the other boys and girls who live there. Sol, full name Solitude, has only just arrived. Before, he was at a hospital that just like all the others, couldn’t diagnose or treat his horrible back pain. In the middle of the night, he is woken up, and told that he’s being taken to the Ash House, where he could be healed. Once he enters the Ash House, he may not leave. He forgets who he was before he was Solitude, as all the children in the Ash House are named are Nicenesses. Freedom, Mercy, Merit, Solitude, and many more.

The headmaster has been gone for three years,

and just happens to stop calling when Sol arrives. The children only have the Doctor, a man with no clue how to heal, who experiments on the children, thinking his methods will work, whom all the children are scared of. Because of him, getting sick is not allowed in the Ash House. If someone gets sick, the birds will see it, and the Doctor will come. No one is allowed beyond the fence, because anyone who goes beyond the fence will die the worst death they can imagine.

Sol is an outsider, and because of him, strange things are happening in the Ash House. The only one willing to protect him is Dom, but Dom doesn’t know how to protect Sol when Sol won’t listen to him. 

Despite the thriller undertones of this book, the Ash House is mainly about a found family, and how it isn’t always what you expect it to be. It’s ultimately about how the children loved each other and their home and their headmaster, despite everything, because they had each other, and they didn’t need anything else.