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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It's got some interesting characters and ideas. The writing is fairly solid and it sets things up for the next book really well. It's a fairly easy read and not terribly complex but enjoyable.
I LOVED this book. I am not too into paranormal type of stories, but I really liked this story. At first, I didn't know it was based on her ability on seeing ghosts until I actually started reading it. I got this book for free off of amazon, and I'm really grateful of that. I'm sad that I have to pay for the second book, though, but I hope to read it sometime soon. This is my favorite paranormal series so far. I would give it 5 stars, but in the kindle edition, there were a lot of errors and typos that I couldn't really read over. I hope that this would get fixed so that other readers can have a good time, and easy time, reading this book:)
Wow. This was just wow. It was a suspenseful, hold-your-breath-the-whole-time kind of story. I really enjoyed this mystery!
It was a little slow but all in all I loved it! I reallly dislike Henry though, what a douche
I read this book very quickly, it is quite the page turner. I think it had parts in the middle to middle/end that were slow, but otherwise it kept up the pace. It is completely PG in the romance department, not that it is a bad thing!
I do think there could have been a little more explanation into the paranormal part, Ariel's grandmother, Jenna, Theo's past, and the weird Thornhill Society. I know there is going to be several books, but sometimes it jumped around at parts and told too much about somethings and not enough about others.
With all of that said, I still enjoyed the read and really couldn't put it down. Ariel is a great character and I love Theo. Henry could use a beating or two to get his head on straight though!
Still, the author really grabbed me. You have me till the next book for sure! 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
I do think there could have been a little more explanation into the paranormal part, Ariel's grandmother, Jenna, Theo's past, and the weird Thornhill Society. I know there is going to be several books, but sometimes it jumped around at parts and told too much about somethings and not enough about others.
With all of that said, I still enjoyed the read and really couldn't put it down. Ariel is a great character and I love Theo. Henry could use a beating or two to get his head on straight though!
Still, the author really grabbed me. You have me till the next book for sure! 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
Really enjoyed this book! My only issue is that it feels like some of the paragraphs just drop off sometimes. It's a free download on ibooks.
I’m torn as to how to rate this book. The writing isn’t terrible nor is it bland enough that I really don’t care. But there’s nothing that’s grabbing me with the plot and telling me that “I HAVE TO READ EVERYTHING ELSE I MUST KNOOOOW.” (And honestly, I don’t remember when or why I purchased this book; I suspect that it was during another one of my “Hey, let’s go through the 100 Top Free Teen Books” on Amazon.)
There is a good horror slant to the book, and there are some effectively creepy scenes in the book—I actually liked the bit when Ariel and her friends are going through a haunted orphanage, and her ability to see ghosts bleeds into the experience. That was a fantastic scene, as you really can’t tell at first that is the ghost boy an actor or is Ariel seeing things and the environment is making everything creepier. Most of Ariel’s interactions with the ghosts are actually well done, and I liked that there’s a great atmosphere to those scenes.
I have to tangent on something that bugged me: Ariel’s said to be a fan of horror movies and haunted houses…whenever it’s pointed out that “Oh, btw I like horror movies.” I’m not asking that Ariel has to be dark and macabre and thinking about possible ways a serial killer would work. But it never comes across in the book that Ariel likes those things. Mentioning “The heroine who runs away and trips on her high heels” is something anyone could mention, because that stereotype is so well-known. There’s nothing that says that Ariel is genre-savvy and would know “Hey, how would things go in a horror story?” (If anything, her being a fan of haunted houses only shows that she wants to be stubborn around Henry and not the shrieking girl who has to cling on to the big strong boy.)
And I could never get a handle on Ariel’s character. One minute, she’s dead-panning with her dad and the next, she’s moping about Henry and “Oh I can’t be with him because the bitchy mean girl wants him.” I never got that she was still grieving over Jenna’s disappearance, much less desperate to figure out what happened over the summer. There was really good potential with the horror angle, but as it is, Ariel’s another copied-and-pasted YA heroine with little personality to be her own character. Jenna was the other issue—she never makes a lasting impression. I never got the sense that Jenna and Ariel have been best friends since elementary school; if anything, Jenna felt more like a friend of convenience rather than someone Ariel should be willing to place herself in danger for. (Especially since Ariel never talks to anyone about Jenna’s disappearance; and to tangent again, why isn’t there a guidance counselor hauling Ariel in on the first day of school? If there’s a number of high-profile disappearances for school-age kids, why isn’t everyone stepping in and doing stranger-danger assemblies? I have a feeling that this is all swept under “Oh, well, there’s that secret society that runs the whole town!” Really? No one has family from out of town?)
(Sorry, it’s just the disappearance of Jenna, coupled with two other girls’ disappearances has some similarities with the book I wrote. It’s my personal baggage.)
Actually, the only character I really liked was Theo—she does come off as the quirky arty sarcastic friend for a good chunk of the plot, but I liked that it’s fleshed out that she’s really shy and nervous about showing off her work. She’s not a great character, but compared to the others, she actually had a personality. I couldn’t a handle on Henry—his constant mood swings of being sweet and charming to Ariel only to suddenly go to brash and cold were really jarring. The only kind of close relationship that I got between any of the characters was between Ariel and her dad; even then, I still had issues with Ariel’s parents.
And a lot of the plot happens by convenience. We find out early on that Ariel’s mother and aunt do not get along well. It’s never explained, until Ariel needs to find out how to do a séance—and how convenient that Aunt Corinne knows a lot about séances and actually carries supplies with her everywhere. (I’m not making that up; Ariel steals candles and a book her aunt has in the suitcase.) Oh, Ariel has a special necklace that her grandmother used to have; how convenient that her grandmother claimed to see ghosts. Even more frustrating, there’s a lot of build-up that never gets used for this book. The aforementioned séance takes place at the orphanage-turned-haunted house, and Ariel’s dreams lead her to believe that Jenna and the two other missing girls are hidden there. And the climax happens…in the high school’s boiler room. I really hate the idea that nothing’s explained about the Dexter Orphanage because “Oh, it’s a series, and we’ll get to that in Book X.” Uh, no. There’s nothing even really resolved, aside from the murderer of the two girls who go missing throughout the course of the novel.Who happens to be Ariel’s history teacher and her father’s best friend. BULLSHIT. Allow me to reiterate for authors who want to have a twist ending: it needs to be plausible, and yes, there needs to be some set-up. A throwaway line about being a ‘turncoat’ for Halloween and info-dumping town folklore (and if he’s a history teacher, he’s doing a pretty bad job of it, as he ought to be explaining the fact from the lore) does not equal a set-up for him to be the villain. First of all, he’s barely on-screen for most of the book, aside from the school scenes. Second, there’s no evidence to connect him with the earlier disappearances. It’s lazy writing, and only exists to try and shock the readers.
There is a good book in here. As I said, whenever the horror element was in full play, it was really well done, and I loved those scenes. But so much of it is bogged down by YA PNR c&p’d characterization and development; not to mention, the reliance of making creating a series to force the readers to read on to find out the deep ~mystery~ of the town and the secret society. And it doesn’t even do a good enough set-up to make me want to continue reading the series. This could have been a good little series, but it suffers by trying to fit in with all of the trends.
There is a good horror slant to the book, and there are some effectively creepy scenes in the book—I actually liked the bit when Ariel and her friends are going through a haunted orphanage, and her ability to see ghosts bleeds into the experience. That was a fantastic scene, as you really can’t tell at first that is the ghost boy an actor or is Ariel seeing things and the environment is making everything creepier. Most of Ariel’s interactions with the ghosts are actually well done, and I liked that there’s a great atmosphere to those scenes.
I have to tangent on something that bugged me: Ariel’s said to be a fan of horror movies and haunted houses…whenever it’s pointed out that “Oh, btw I like horror movies.” I’m not asking that Ariel has to be dark and macabre and thinking about possible ways a serial killer would work. But it never comes across in the book that Ariel likes those things. Mentioning “The heroine who runs away and trips on her high heels” is something anyone could mention, because that stereotype is so well-known. There’s nothing that says that Ariel is genre-savvy and would know “Hey, how would things go in a horror story?” (If anything, her being a fan of haunted houses only shows that she wants to be stubborn around Henry and not the shrieking girl who has to cling on to the big strong boy.)
And I could never get a handle on Ariel’s character. One minute, she’s dead-panning with her dad and the next, she’s moping about Henry and “Oh I can’t be with him because the bitchy mean girl wants him.” I never got that she was still grieving over Jenna’s disappearance, much less desperate to figure out what happened over the summer. There was really good potential with the horror angle, but as it is, Ariel’s another copied-and-pasted YA heroine with little personality to be her own character. Jenna was the other issue—she never makes a lasting impression. I never got the sense that Jenna and Ariel have been best friends since elementary school; if anything, Jenna felt more like a friend of convenience rather than someone Ariel should be willing to place herself in danger for. (Especially since Ariel never talks to anyone about Jenna’s disappearance; and to tangent again, why isn’t there a guidance counselor hauling Ariel in on the first day of school? If there’s a number of high-profile disappearances for school-age kids, why isn’t everyone stepping in and doing stranger-danger assemblies? I have a feeling that this is all swept under “Oh, well, there’s that secret society that runs the whole town!” Really? No one has family from out of town?)
(Sorry, it’s just the disappearance of Jenna, coupled with two other girls’ disappearances has some similarities with the book I wrote. It’s my personal baggage.)
Actually, the only character I really liked was Theo—she does come off as the quirky arty sarcastic friend for a good chunk of the plot, but I liked that it’s fleshed out that she’s really shy and nervous about showing off her work. She’s not a great character, but compared to the others, she actually had a personality. I couldn’t a handle on Henry—his constant mood swings of being sweet and charming to Ariel only to suddenly go to brash and cold were really jarring. The only kind of close relationship that I got between any of the characters was between Ariel and her dad; even then, I still had issues with Ariel’s parents.
And a lot of the plot happens by convenience. We find out early on that Ariel’s mother and aunt do not get along well. It’s never explained, until Ariel needs to find out how to do a séance—and how convenient that Aunt Corinne knows a lot about séances and actually carries supplies with her everywhere. (I’m not making that up; Ariel steals candles and a book her aunt has in the suitcase.) Oh, Ariel has a special necklace that her grandmother used to have; how convenient that her grandmother claimed to see ghosts. Even more frustrating, there’s a lot of build-up that never gets used for this book. The aforementioned séance takes place at the orphanage-turned-haunted house, and Ariel’s dreams lead her to believe that Jenna and the two other missing girls are hidden there. And the climax happens…in the high school’s boiler room. I really hate the idea that nothing’s explained about the Dexter Orphanage because “Oh, it’s a series, and we’ll get to that in Book X.” Uh, no. There’s nothing even really resolved, aside from the murderer of the two girls who go missing throughout the course of the novel.
There is a good book in here. As I said, whenever the horror element was in full play, it was really well done, and I loved those scenes. But so much of it is bogged down by YA PNR c&p’d characterization and development; not to mention, the reliance of making creating a series to force the readers to read on to find out the deep ~mystery~ of the town and the secret society. And it doesn’t even do a good enough set-up to make me want to continue reading the series. This could have been a good little series, but it suffers by trying to fit in with all of the trends.
I really, really wanted to say that I loved this book. It has so much potential. But the English teacher in me is having a hard time getting past the sophomoric writing and lack of editing. Too many times I stumbled upon blatantly obvious mistakes that could have been corrected with proper editing. There were times I became confused by sudden changes or jumps in the story. I hope that these errors are corrected in future books.
I did enjoy the original story--ghosts--and Ariel and Theo were refreshing characters. I am hopeful that Ms. Boyd continues writing and working diligently toward bringing a fresh perspective to the young adult genre.
I did enjoy the original story--ghosts--and Ariel and Theo were refreshing characters. I am hopeful that Ms. Boyd continues writing and working diligently toward bringing a fresh perspective to the young adult genre.
I wasn't sure how I would like this book - sometimes, paranormal stuff REALLY bothers me - but I read this entire book in an hour and a half. I could not put it down! Which hasn't happened in a while. I was also completely taken by surprise by the ending, and though there was a very obvious set up for a sequel at the very end, I think it sucked me in, and I want to read that signal. It left a lot of questions about the town unanswered. I rather liked the semi development of the main character as well; she started out very unassuming and reserved, but as you get to know her, and as this stuff happens, she becomes different, much as I think I might like to be seen if I was in this situation. At any rate, I did like this, and I didn't think I was going to - always a nice surprise!
First off, the title has absolutely nothing to do with the story. The summary mentions the paranormal, but the only things that result are the main character hearing bangs on her wall, hearing her name called a few times, and seeing two dead girls three separate times for a few seconds. 99.9% of the story revolved around Ariel obsessing over the new hot boy at school who ultimately is hot and cold with her. He goes from liking her to ignoring her to saying he is sorry and claiming to like her to ignoring her again and randomly dating the popular mean girl at school. At the sign of his first mood swing, any intelligent person should have known this kid was unstable and to stay away, but not Ariel. Lastly, there is the minor subplot consisting of Ariel's horrible and rude BFF vanishing one night. That's all we learn about that. No answers were given for the missing friend or the few paranormal experiences.