Monday, March 02, 2009

Ghostgirl (book review)

Ghostgirl, by Tonya Hurley, is the story of Charlotte Usher, who's invisible to virtually everyone at her high school. She's a nobody, someone who the popular girls, Petula Kensington and her crowd, look down upon. Charlotte wants more than anything to become like Petula and to catch the eye of her crush, Damen. But things never seem to go Charlotte's way, and just when she thinks she's getting somewhere she chokes on a gummy bear on the way to the next class...and dies.

But, as it turns out, she can't rest in peace until she completes an unfinished task. For now, she's stuck on Earth in some kind of strange school for ghosts. Charlotte can only guess what her "unfinished task" is. But for now she's completely fine following Damen around in secrecy. After all, no human can see her now...except for one, Petula's younger sister, Scarlet. And Scarlet just might be the key to scoring a kiss from Damen. Now that Charlotte's a ghost, she can possess humans and inhabit their bodies. All she has to do is convince Scarlet to agree...and get Damen to fall for her. But carrying out this plan just might destroy the delicate world that Charlotte's ghostly friends have built up around them.

This book was okay. I was really enjoying it at first, but towards the middle it seemed to be getting old. All it talked about was Damen, 24/7, which started to get annoying. However, it began to pick up towards the end again. I really loved the bittersweet ending. Overall it was a good book, but I wouldn't rush out to buy it or anything. WARNING: This book, even though it's a fast read, isn't for very young readers. It uses quite a bit of bad language.

This book was for the Support Your Local Library Challenge.

2 comments:

J.C. said...

I wanted to love this book, but just could't.
I will say, though, the book design is one of the nicest I've ever seen.

Debi said...

J.C.--

I felt the same way about it. I really, really wanted to enjoy it, but it just fell short of my expectations. And I have to agree with you about the book design--it was part of what attracted me to this book in the first place!

--Annie