Book Review of The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

Title: The Ghost and the Goth

Author: Stacey Kade

Release Date: June 29th, 2010

After a close encounter with the front end of a school bus, Alona Dare goes from Homecoming Queen to Queen of the Dead. Now she’s stuck here in spirit form with no sign of the big, bright light coming to take her away. To make matters worse, the only person who might be able to help her is Will Killian, a total loser/outcast type who hates the social elite. He alone can see and hear her, but he wants nothing to do with the former mean girl of Groundsboro High.

Can they get over their mutual distrust—and this weird attraction between them—to work together before Alona vanishes for good and Will is locked up for seeing things that don’t exist?

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review:

This book has a little story with it for me.  I was standing with my friend, James at ALA waiting for a signing and he was waiting to meet Stacey Kade.  ( I know, he is just that cool)  Anyway, I had not managed to get a copy of this book yet, but I was really looking forward to it so I was hoping I could meet her too.  My wish came true when Stacey walked up to where we were standing.  She talked to James for a little bit and signed his book.  Then I started to talk to her and tell her how excited I was about this book and she said ok hold on.  She went and got a copy of her book for me (and a couple other people there) and signed them for us.  It was crazy!  I was giddy!  Not only did I get a copy of the book, but I got to talk to the author and get her to sign my book!   She was so sweet and I don’t think I will ever forget how I met her.

Now, onto her book.  You are introduced to Alona Dare in the prologue, where you start to get a picture of just who she is.  While not paying attention Alona proceeds to cross the street, get run over by a school bus, and dies.  Where death is normally the ending of a story, this one is just the begining for Alona.  Before we go farther with that, let me describe Alona for you real quick and let’s see if you don’t actually already know her.  She is, well here are her words:

“When you’re homecoming queen three years running, varsity cheerleader co-captain, and the first attendant on the prom court as a junior, there are certain responsibilities and expectations that must be met.  The slightest variation–talking to the wrong person; wearing the same sweater that a geek, in a rare moment of fashion consciousness wears as well; buying a burger instead of a salad-can tip you into obscurity or worse.”

You getting the idea?  I think we all knew this girl in high school and if you were like me avoided them at all costs, because while they were on top in high school you secretly knew their day was coming.  No, not death.   I mean just that someday they would hopefully realize that they were being jerks.  So warming up to Alona at the beginning of the book was a bit tricky for me, I kept picturing Rachel McAdams from Mean Girls in my head.  But, there was a turning point for me and I am not sure exaclty when it happened.   All I know is that I went from finding everything she said annoying and wanted to strangle her to her comments making me laugh out loud and I found myself rooting for her.  However, Alona is a ghost now.  So she cannot reek as much havoc as she did when she was alive because no one can hear her.  Well, almost no one.

Enter Will Killian, he can hear, see and talk to the dead.  He avoids this at all costs though, because once they know he can talk to them they never leave him alone.  To help block out the constant ghost chatter Will uses his iPod “Marcie”  to keep the madness at bay.  Once Will figures out that Alona has become a ghost he tries to stay away at first, but then they realize they can help each out so they try to get along.  These two did not exactly run in the same circles in high school, so trying to find a common ground proves to be difficult.  And as a reader, getting to watch that struggle is pure amusement.

I was also intrigued by some of the issues that came up in this book.  I love the cover, but it fooled me into thinking that death would be the only tough issue covered.  I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong though, there are deeper issues rooted in this book that catch you off guard.  It paints a more realistic picture of what some teens go through these days when walking the high school halls.

I was left happy enough with the ending, but I would like to visit with these characters again.  I have heard rumors of a sequel and I am hoping they are true because Alona and Will are just too much fun to not read about again.  If you have not picked this up yet, you should.  It is a fun, feisty read that will leave you wanting more.

Language Love:

“The briefcase looked like some kind of strange creature caught in midchew…The briefcase creature flopped on its side and promptly barfed up its contents”

I know I normally pick sentences that describe scenery or something along those lines, but this was just too funny to pass up.  I love briefcase creature and how it now has life.