ALA Booklist (Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2002)

The phrase "Be careful what you wish for" takes on ominous significance in this creepy story where wish fulfillment and perfection make for a menacing collaboration. Hadley Jackson, along with her mother, stepfather, and stepbrother, has moved from the city to an old country house that seems to keep losing occupants. Something maliciously magical is brewing, and it emanates from a dollhouse hidden in the attic. The story alternates between Hadley's perspective and that of the first girl to live in the house, each of whom find that the wishes they make tend to come true t not as intended. Hadley's efforts to undo her calamitous wishes lead to an unexpected ending that will surprise readers with its bold, menacing conclusion. Doppelgänger dolls, flesh-eating flies, echoes between realities, and a glass eye contribute to the doomed, gothic undertones of Hadley's story. As the pieces between past and present fall chillingly into place, they threaten to trap Hadley in a world of her own dreaming. Read this one with the lights on.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Hadley wants her life back--before her mom married Ed, Hadley gained a stepbrother, and they moved into a decrepit old house. Hadley finds a dollhouse replica of the house in the attic and discovers her wishes change reality. Switching between present and past, the story's darkness slowly unfolds as Hadley learns that wishes can be dangerous and not all endings are happy.

Kirkus Reviews

You know what they say: be careful what you wish for….It's bad enough that the house reminds Hadley of a "decomposing log," but almost as soon as the white 12-year-old and her family move into their new home, Hadley feels like someone—or something—is watching her. Then comes the glass eye, and the mysterious dollhouse (an exact replica of the creepy old house on Orchard Drive), and then the questions. Where is the doll the eye belongs to? To whom does the dollhouse belong, and why was it left behind? What is sweet "Granny," the doll maker who lives above the garage, hiding? Who moves the dollhouse's occupants around when Hadley's not looking? When Hadley makes a series of wishes that cause her entire world to unravel, she finds herself living a perfect—but frightening—new life. A second, first-person narrative parallels Hadley's and gradually reveals the frightening history of the house and its first family, who lived there more than a century ago. Distinctive imagery (Hadley's stepfather has "the personality of gelatinous zooplankton") enlivens the tight prose. An ever present and always-growing sense of dread accompanied by an atmosphere of chills and mystery make this perfect for reading in the closet under the cover of night. (Horror. 8-12)