Saki Yamamoto dreads spending the summer in her grandmother's isolated village, far away from her friends in Tokyo. While preparing for the Obon ceremony, Saki gets an opportunity to hang out with some local kids who want to sneak into a shrine. After a dare to ring the sacred bell, Saki gets more than she bargained: she accidentally invokes a death curse. With 3 nights to undo it along with the help of several spirits, Saki must brave the Night Parade, spirit guardians of the shrine, and more if she wants to stay on her side of living.

THE NIGHT PARADE is full of awesome creepy scenes that sent chills up my spine (especially the scene with witch's son). This would be a great read-a-like for Tracey Baptiste's Jumbies series for the creep/scary level.

I enjoyed how realistic Saki's feelings are. She feels immense pressure to fit in so she isn't as directly bullied as some of her classmates are, but she also starts to think that the 'friends' she has back in Tokyo might not be worth it. She has to learn to stand up for herself and push back against the pressure to go along with something just because others are.