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heabooknerd's review
3.0
I first read the MEDIATOR series back in high school just before the last one came out and I loved them so much! So I was very excited to see this book had come out and knew I would have to read it. Although I liked the book it wasn't as good as I was hoping for or as good as I feel the original series was. I did enjoy catching up with all of the old characters, like Suze’s step-brothers, her parents, Father Dominic, her best friends Adam and Cece and of course her high school rivals Kelly Prescott and Debbie Mancuso. Jesse was fantastic as usual, and I loved his character from the very beginning. Of course I loved him in the original series too and he's just even better in this one. He has such a calm personality and is always ready to protect Suze whenever she needs it and is always willing to forgive her when she makes stupid mistakes. Suze was her usual sarcastic self which I loved and brought me lots of flashbacks of reading the original series back. Suze was feisty and tough and determined to help everyone and protect everyone.
So for me the biggest thing I didn’t like comes from Suze’s growth, or lack thereof. I would have expected her to have grown up a little and matured, particularly in her mediator abilities. Now it hasn't been a ton of years, I don't remember how old she was supposed to be, but she is getting her graduate degree so she's in her early twenties. Now I know not everyone changes drastically during this time but I was hoping that a little bit of age would have given her some newer and better strategies for dealing with ghosts and helped her to think before she acted, which was her usual problem as a teenager. She seemed to kind of just bumble through dealing with ghosts, just like she used to and this got her into even worse trouble most of the time.
The other big thing was Paul Slater, who makes his return in this book to pester and make things hard on Suze and her relationship with Jesse. I had nothing against Paul because he was his usual annoying self that makes such a great character to hate. My problem is that his reason for being in the book just didn’t mesh well for me. He is the catalyst for all of Suze’s problems, but they get built up so much and the way things are handled in the end is a bit anticlimactic. Paul has bought Suze’s old house and plans to tear it down; he then reveals to Suze that there’s an ancient Egyptian curse in the Book of the Dead about disturbing the resting place of a ghost and it causes them to turn into a demon. Now Suze is all worried about what will happen to Jesse, while trying to keep Paul being back in a town a secret and then dealing with Paul trying to convince her to leave Jesse and be with him. I’m also not sure I feel about the resolution of the murder ghost girl, Lucia. I’m really undecided if it was a good form of justice or if it took Suze too dark of a place. If you really want to know, here’s the spoiler, but it’s big, so you’re forewarned
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SPOILERThe dead ghost Lucia, supposedly died when she was thrown from her horse at her private school. Turns out she knew that one of the stable hands was abusing another student so the stable-hand, Jimmy, killed her. Years later Suze meets ghost Lucia and manages to track down Jimmy to a photography business in Carmel. She drags Paul along to the shop, pulls a gun on Jimmy and ties him up. Then she searches his office and finds incriminating information and photos of children that she threatens to turn into the police. A scuffle ensues and Jimmy gets a hold of a gun and shoots himself in the head to avoid going to prison. Suze anonymously turns over the information and leaves Jimmy to be found the next day by his assistant. So I just don’t know I feel about all of this.
Content Warning: One of the students at the school was a victim of abuse as a young child
So for me the biggest thing I didn’t like comes from Suze’s growth, or lack thereof. I would have expected her to have grown up a little and matured, particularly in her mediator abilities. Now it hasn't been a ton of years, I don't remember how old she was supposed to be, but she is getting her graduate degree so she's in her early twenties. Now I know not everyone changes drastically during this time but I was hoping that a little bit of age would have given her some newer and better strategies for dealing with ghosts and helped her to think before she acted, which was her usual problem as a teenager. She seemed to kind of just bumble through dealing with ghosts, just like she used to and this got her into even worse trouble most of the time.
The other big thing was Paul Slater, who makes his return in this book to pester and make things hard on Suze and her relationship with Jesse. I had nothing against Paul because he was his usual annoying self that makes such a great character to hate. My problem is that his reason for being in the book just didn’t mesh well for me. He is the catalyst for all of Suze’s problems, but they get built up so much and the way things are handled in the end is a bit anticlimactic. Paul has bought Suze’s old house and plans to tear it down; he then reveals to Suze that there’s an ancient Egyptian curse in the Book of the Dead about disturbing the resting place of a ghost and it causes them to turn into a demon. Now Suze is all worried about what will happen to Jesse, while trying to keep Paul being back in a town a secret and then dealing with Paul trying to convince her to leave Jesse and be with him. I’m also not sure I feel about the resolution of the murder ghost girl, Lucia. I’m really undecided if it was a good form of justice or if it took Suze too dark of a place. If you really want to know, here’s the spoiler, but it’s big, so you’re forewarned
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SPOILER
Content Warning: One of the students at the school was a victim of abuse as a young child
eldrvarya's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
malinhalia's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
1.25
I think present day me and 13-year old me are probably equally horrified by the outcome of this reading experience but for very different reasons.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide, Child abuse, Child death, Murder, Sexual assault, and Pedophilia
morgan_reads_books's review
2.0
This reprisal of some of my favorite childhood characters was so disappointing. All the characters seem to have become the worst, most extreme versions of themselves. While expecting off-scene character development may be setting the bar too high, I think it's reasonable to be disappointed that adult Suze can't control her potty mouth, can't understand a lick of Spanish after studying it for 6 years, and can't stop lying to everyone around her. Far from being humorous, her poor character traits made her feel like a bad knockoff of Cher from Clueless.
Jesse is presented as a violent boyfriend who's going to lose all control if he's told the truth, and Paul, who was always the bad boy option of the love triangle, has now become full-blown villain. To me, the desirability of either of them fell flat.
It could just be me, but any storyline that could be resolved by a good 10-minute truth-telling session is a flimsy plot at best. I found myself more frustrated than amused at Suze's antics this time.
The one redeeming part of this book was Suze's triplet nieces. For me they held all the humor and cleverness reminiscent of the original series.
Jesse is presented as a violent boyfriend who's going to lose all control if he's told the truth, and Paul, who was always the bad boy option of the love triangle, has now become full-blown villain. To me, the desirability of either of them fell flat.
It could just be me, but any storyline that could be resolved by a good 10-minute truth-telling session is a flimsy plot at best. I found myself more frustrated than amused at Suze's antics this time.
The one redeeming part of this book was Suze's triplet nieces. For me they held all the humor and cleverness reminiscent of the original series.
kberry513's review
4.0
While I'm very happy about the way this ended and I liked a lot of the bits of info on each of the supporting characters lives (like David being gay and Brad having mediator triplets (who were actually Paul's) and Kelly marrying a rich older man and Jake starting a successful pot business), there were a lot of times when I just wanted to shake Suze until she stopped lying to Jesse about Paul, since finding out she lied was obviously going to be way worse than the things she lied about. And the whole Paul extorting sex thing was a little weird...but then, I've never liked Paul as a character and I've never understood Suze's attitude towards him either. Over all though, I really enjoyed it. Plus, it didn't take a Ten-Year-Reunion-Sisterhood-of-the-Traveling-Pants type turn either, which was key. I was so mad after I read that follow up book.
melissajayhay's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
shirleymak's review
5.0
Oh my lawd. I have missed Meg Cabot's books and I've missed Suze & Jesse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also it is way too late and I'm tired from reading all day. I'm positive I will regret this in the future but BYEE YA GIRL'S GOTTA SLEEP
dinnureads's review
3.0
So Cabot decided to return to Mediator series after a long hiatus...As this particular book isn't meant to be YA anymore then the subjects were unexpectedly serious and yet Suze acted like a sex-crazy teenager and wasn't at all matured since the events in previous books.....That didn't fit well together with the serious undertones...Somehow being adult seemed to mostly mean alcohol, sex and life's uglier aspects :D Oh well, it was still nice to have an insight to the lives of all the old characters (I must say that they were a bit too crooked for my taste, although not exactly unpredictable) :P