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This book made me enjoy the prior two much more in retrospect. It makes it unavoidably clear that Lucy is an unreliable narrator who doesn't describe people as they actually are, but as she (a teenage girl) perceives them. It makes some of the interplay between her and George in previous books more bearable, and telegraphs nicely that her relationship with Holly will eventually improve if she can get over herself.

This is also probably the spookiest book in the series!

This is where the series really gets going, I think. The developing relationships between the core three characters is fun to witness, and the introduction of the skull brings some levity to what can be a little dark otherwise. World building continues to be solid, and a direction set for the rest of the series.

While Screaming Staircase could arguably be skipped, I'd definitely pick up Whispering Skull if you're interested in the series.

A fairly fun read. The world building is solid and engaging and the characters are well filled out and believable. The narrator is incredibly un-self-aware/unreliable in her descriptions of her peers/job/the world around her, which is mostly entertaining and makes the book more believable.

The one place where this rubs wrong is her descriptions of one of her friends who she really hasn't warmed up to in this book, and can be a little uncomplementary. By the second or third book, it's clear this was an authorial choice and the two warm up to each other (only to be supplanted by a new character the narrator initially dislikes!).