116) The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

The Blurb :

Alona Dare–Senior in high school, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, Homecoming Queen three years in a row, voted most likely to marry a movie star… and newly dead.

I’m the girl you hated in high school. Is it my fault I was born with it all-good looks, silky blond hair, a hot bod, and a keen sense of what everyone else should not be wearing? But my life isn’t perfect, especially since I died. Run over by a bus of band geeks—is there anything more humiliating? As it turns out, yes—watching your boyfriend and friends move on with life, only days after your funeral. And you wouldn’t believe what they’re saying about me now that they think I can’t hear them. To top it off, I’m starting to disappear, flickering in and out of existence. I don’t know where I go when I’m gone, but it’s not good. Where is that freaking white light already?

Will Killian–Senior in high school, outcast, dubbed “Will Kill” by the popular crowd for the unearthly aura around him, voted most likely to rob a bank…and a ghost-talker.

I can see, hear, and touch the dead. Unfortunately, they can also see, hear and touch me. Yeah, because surviving high school isn’t hard enough already. I’ve done my best to hide my “gift.” After all, my dad, who shared my ability, killed himself because of it when I was fifteen. But lately, pretending to be normal has gotten a lot harder. A new ghost—an anonymous, seething cloud of negative energy with the capacity to throw me around—is pursuing me with a vengeance. My mom, who knows nothing about what I can do, is worrying about the increase in odd incidents, my shrink is tossing around terms like “temporary confinement for psychiatric evaluation,” and my principal, who thinks I’m a disruption and a faker, is searching for every way possible to get rid of me. How many weeks until graduation?

My Thoughts :

I needed and wanted to read something fun, easy and light. So the cover for The Ghost and the Goth really shouted 'read me'. I took this book with me in my bag thinking it was going to be a fast read that I could finish in one day. How wrong I was. The cover is very misleading and even the blurb comes across as something very young and silly but actually this book has a lot of depth and I found myself needing more than a day to let everything sink in.

Even after the first few chapters I was waiting for the fun to begin but this stayed pretty serious the whole way through. Sure there were moments that could have been laugh out loud occasions but I think the whole concept put a bit of a downer on things. A young girl is dead and now a ghost and A young boy is seeing ghosts but everyone thinks he is crazy. It could have been funny but the author surprised me by keeping it quite real and intense.

Now I am not saying that because of this I didn't like the book. I actually found it to be a super read. I just wasn't expecting the seriousness and realistic angle. It made me stop a few times and take a moment to digest what was really going on. While this has Young adult focus it is quite adult at times and I wonder if younger readers will actually get 'it'.

This may not have been the best written book and it has some minor flaws but it had some great paranormal activity. The characters were interesting to follow and the plot wasn't that bad and did keep me guessing. I am really looking forward to reading the second part, Queen of the Dead, and am extremely curious to how things develop for the two main characters.