Scan barcode
A review by heabooknerd
Remembrance by Meg Cabot
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
.
.
.
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
.
.
.
SPOILER
Content Warning: One of the students at the school was a victim of abuse as a young child