The House at the Edge of the World is a great book written in verse, which really gives a pace to the plot. There was some beautiful language and a real focus on using imagery and imagination to tell the story.

Amal’s family own a community library and just as they are losing one home, they inherit a house on the edge of a cliff. It’s a huge mystery as to who they have inherited from but they pack up all their things and travel to this eerie house to start a new life. However, there is another claim on the house which is full of secrets and as Amal and her sister Sara slowly uncover them, everything becomes more mysterious and complicated.

There’s a great sense of atmosphere in the book with the eerie feel of the house being created really well and constant reveals of different clues and secrets have you turning the pages to work out what is really going on.

I’ve read books by Nadine Aisha Jassat before and she balances beautiful writing, a great plot, interesting characters and a sense of justice really well. I enjoyed this one just as much as the others and really recommend picking it up,

A most distinctive read, this is one of those novels in verse form, but one that feels more novelistic than many. I've accused many of them I've read of sounding like short stories or novellas just designed to cover more pages and to look like a novel when they're not – I doubt anyone would think that here. We have a mixed-race British family, getting kicked out of their home and the community library they run, due to lack of funds. But immediately at the right instant they get to inherit a strange and strangely abandoned clifftop home – although just when they start to settle happily in they learn all is not as it seems…

This is a piece that juggles three things – mundane, fantastical and emotional. The mundane is the nitty-gritty of then inheriting, and sorting through what seems to be saying they have to move on again, against their will. The emotional is very much linked to that – the talk of family, home, positivity, the follow-your-dreams lesson passed down one midnight. The fantastical I think is perhaps the most interesting, but the part of the book that the least is done with, ultimately – the way the house is practically alive, giving the people in it what they want, doing the chores for them, and the way the local village remembers the other people who lived there.

So this is a heart-warming message, a drama with a deadline, and something that (initially at least) gives a couple of light chills. And it's doing everything pretty well, especially when you see those are quite differently-sized balls to keep on juggling. The central relationship between the sisters here, the younger one narrating and the more whipsmart older one learning her adult cynicism, is really enjoyable to read, too. The younger has an issue with intrusive thoughts I didn't think came across wonderfully, and the place an aspect of it has at the conclusion of the drama makes you question how sincerely the whole thing was included. But minor flaws don't get in the way of this being a pretty intriguing effort, and one I was glad to have enjoyed.

A magical house is always so much fun! I really liked the writing style, written almost in prose, and I think this is a really great depiction of anxiety for younger readers. I struggled to connect with characters other than Amal and Sara, our main characters, but this is very gentle and warm and I would recommend!

When their parents lose their livelihood after the library that they run is closed down due to lack of financial support from the authorities, Amal's entire family - and her Aunt Muriel - must move to a new place, and an even stranger new house on the edge of a cliff.

Isn't sure how long they can even stay there, because there are a nasty pair of local residents who want to claim Hope House for themselves. For Amal, who already struggles with her anxiety, this does not help! But the family are determined to put up a fight and save their new home.

Jassat delivers another book of what feels like prose poetry, poignant and thoughtful, drawing on themes of identity, dream jobs and found family.

Amal is such an endearing character, she is our narrator and shares the awful closing of the library her parents run, meaning they need to move home along with her sister Sara, Aunt Muriel and dog Tato.

An unexpected unherited house gives the family hope of a new future, however there's a spanner in the works with 2 others who claim to have a more prominent right to inheriting this house, a house right on a cliff, surrounded in mist, as if it sits at the edge of the world.

This book is ideal for children who are just beginning to explore middle grade novels. It explores lots of ideas that children will have experience of around identity, family, magic and hope. The house is so special and brings all the magic to the book awakening the reader an characters to a world of possibilities. It takes more than magic to solve the problems in the book and I enjoyed the merging of magic and real world.

I'll definitely be recommending this book to children at school who are just beginning to enjoy a longer chapter book with magical possibilities.

Verse novels are a guilty pleasure of mine. I love that the author gets straight to the story and uses only the most vital words needed to share the story.
This is the third verse novel from Nadine Aisha Jassat and I love each one. She writes with such heart but deals with important issues within each one.
In this story, we meet Amal and Sara along with their parents and Aunt Muriel as they leave their beloved home and library. They weren’t able to stop the closing of the library and were desperate for a new home when a mysterious letter arrived offering them an inheritance. The family has inherited Hope House.
Arriving at this mysterious house, the family discover it has some hidden depths and adjust to the comfort and hope it offers each of them individually. What they also discover is that a couple in the local village believe the house belongs to them and gives them 30 days to vacate. Amal and Sara are determined to find out the truth and begin investigating at the local archive and in the attic of the house. They uncover some facts which may help their case.
This book not only share a love of libraries and books but deals with grief, mental health and families. Amal is one who worries and has troubling thoughts so she focuses on words and keeps a diary of them. She worries about drifting away from her sister and making new friends.
She is filled with Hope amongst her worries and it is this that leads her to the truth behind Hope House.
It was the perfect book for me to read and I just adored it.

I love Nadine Aisha Jassat's writing and was swept away by this mystery with a magical twist. The cast of characters in the book (including Hope House) is brilliantly conceived with both feisty, gentle and villainous characters all playing their parts to perfection creating a balanced dynamic that is a joy to read. I instantly connected with Amal - our storyteller - who struggles with anxiety and invasive Thoughts (as she calls them). The way those Thoughts could obstruct Amal's confidence, invade her dreams and make her feel guilt was handled with such grace and with a poetic turn of phrase that will deepen understanding makes this story one that will build empathy as well as self-compassion. And the way Amal manages those Thoughts, and overcomes them, is inclusive and supportive.
Above all this is a book about Hope. And it leaves the reader with that hopeful message in their heart. It's incredibly uplifting.
With beautiful poetry, humour and a keen sense of the challenges of modern childhood, Jassat is a must-read children's writer and I cannot recommend The House at the Edge of the World highly enough.