EricaO

I DID IT!
I survived this book!
I am the STRONGEST!
RAAAAAAAAAR!

That's me after finishing this story.

Soooo...I hated it.
I totally read this in the wrong age (both in terms of my physical age and in terms of the century in which I am currently living) - I should have read this when I was in my young 20's, still idealistic and full of wonder, before the world changed over to the new millennium and 9/11.
I think had I read this back then, I'd have been enchanted.
In fact, I was enchanted through probably the first half of Peter Lake's story. Oh, the magic of the beautiful Belle Epoque when all things glistened, even orphans in tenements dying of TB. So perfectly touching.
Then the slipstream aspect of time and place showed up and I haven't been a fan of time manipulation in years so that was an unwelcome surprise. After that, I found I was trying to figure out just where/when in hell I was throughout most of the rest of the book and how it all related.
(It didn't relate. It was just smooshed together and forced to get along)
For me, it went from surreal and magical, charming and quaint to full-on pretentious and then to plain, ol' silly.

I suppose if I had to write a paper on this book, I'd say something about Peter Lake being a representation of the last beautiful age in America and Pearly Somes being the antithesis/reality of our sentimentality. The Ghost is probably a mockery of our own ridiculous, gluttonous, vain, indolent, self-involved society with Craig Binky being the representation of the 1% and Harry Penn being his antithesis as the hard-working, respected, talented, deserving millionaire.
Maybe had the entire book been written as a poking satire, laughing at our culture's wish to harness the perceived perfection of times long gone while simultaneously making terrible decisions that will lead even further away from a golden age, it might not have been so tedious. All the word misuse (I was highly offended at the misuse of "sesquipedalean" among others) was not fanciful, the ridiculous names not whimsical. It was grating and it irritated because the story was not a simple satire. It was also a love poem to New York City. We also have a...what? Fallen angel trying to make the rainbow bridge in order to get home? Did I read that right? Or maybe the rainbow bridge was to connect other realities with this one. I don't know. I'm not sure I care. And we have the magical, stuck-in-time-and-space Lake of the Coheres which is like a stepping stone from the last golden age to the turn of this past century and where wise women who love words live. We have a Jesus baby, we have lineage, and then there's the romance story, too, complete with otherworldly superpower protection born of true love. And a magical white horse.
Yay.

It was too much for me. The author's little bio thingy says he doesn't belong to any set "literary school, movement, tendency, or trend" and I think I've come to realize in my stodgy old age that I need less of that and more of structure because my intellect can no longer handle anything wobbly.

As I looked at other reviews of this book, I wondered how many of the reviewers had cancer while using it (a few mention being in chemo treatment) and, if so, were they making the recipes or did they have people who were making the food for them? Because I cannot imagine my mom, a lifelong capable user of difficult recipes, making most of the things in this book and she hasn't even started chemo. She can barely stand upright for ten minutes, let alone prepare an entire dish.

I've been looking through cookbooks trying to find foods that are going to settle well, be easy-to-digest and not taste gross, which is why this particular title appealed to me. However, these are not simple five-ingredients/15 minute instructions. Some of the foods contained herein could be found in Saveur magazine - yummy but time-consuming to prepare and requiring ingredients that have to be hunted down because they don't just appear on the shelves of every grocery store.
I cannot imagine being weak, dizzy, tired, and out-of-breath and pulling most of these off. Good grief, I can't even imagine getting home after 11 hours of work and whipping one of these up to bring to my mom! The book is a little elitist in that it seems to assume the recipe-makers are going to have abundant time, energy, resources, and cash flow. Between the two of us, we could barely cover those four things when she was healthy. Now? Yeah, not so much.

So far, I've had much better success with [b:Betty Crocker Living with Cancer Cookbook|12472037|Betty Crocker Living with Cancer Cookbook|Kris Ghosh|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360057077s/12472037.jpg|17456174] (granted, that one is not nearly as health-oriented as The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen but it's still full of easy recipes that you can health-up yourself) and [b:What to Eat During Cancer Treatment: 100 Great-Tasting, Family-Friendly Recipes to Help You Cope|6649705|What to Eat During Cancer Treatment 100 Great-Tasting, Family-Friendly Recipes to Help You Cope|Jeanne Besser|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328742275s/6649705.jpg|6844276]. Both of these have plenty of simple things made of easy-to-obtain ingredients so that, for the nights I can't bring her dinner, I can bring her the ingredients in advance along with a notecard telling her how to finish assembling them so she can still have something good, tasty, and moderately healthy to eat and it won't take more than a couple of minutes and minimal effort.

I would recommend this particular book to healthy people who have access to locally-grown/raised, 100% natural and organic and pesticide-free groceries as well as a large kitchen, a lot of time, and plenty of energy. It would be a wonderful book for preventing cancer and probably a host of other diseases, as well, because all the food in here practically glows with fortitude, anti-oxidants, and robustliness.

I took a class called "Death and Dying" from Dr. Joan Ray in...1993 or 1994 and this was our textbook.
The class and the book changed my entire viewpoint on death, grief, letting go...everything. It was, hands-down, the best, most useful, most enlightening class I took in my undergrad career.

I kept all my literature books, my Chaucer compendium, and my Shakespeare plays and I kept this book. Moreover, I kept all the notes from this class because I knew I would need them someday.

I need them all now and I can't find the book or the folder full of notes. They are in my house, somewhere safe, somewhere where I should be able to find them because I would have put them in a findable place...but I don't know where that findable place is and it is driving me crazy.

So karen was all "Ooooh!" and then Karly was also all, "Ooooh" + "It's FREE" so...I read this on my break. That's how short this freebie is over at Tor.com. Also, that is how peer pressure works.

This story is sweet and sad but it is also painfully easy to relate to since so many of us went through this exact same thing only scratch the demon and put whatever replacement thing we got in its place. Typically, the replacement is a hamster, guinea pig, or turtle but sometimes it's a second-hand radio or a knock-off Big Wheel or a homemade Cabbage Patch Kid.

I take back my baby comment, karen. I mean, yes, I know babies really are mini-demons but they are NOT the kind you get at the demon store. Where in hell is the demon store, anyway (ha ha, I'm so clever) because now I, too, want to go there and get a little demon. Not a baby, but an actual little demon from the demon store. They are delightful! Small and evil and ever-so-lovable! Gah!

And ponies are for chumps, anyhow. They are so much work and you don't actually get to lie on their backs all summer long while they eat dandelions and you gaze at clouds.

I'm fairly sure I'll forget about this book by the end of the day.
The illustrations are cute with the papercut big-eyed reindeer (or "guys," as they're called throughout the book which made me think maybe they should have all been weird little blobs or shapes or something else not recognizable) and their comedic hijinks. The story is full of the winning/losing lesson and how to be realistic about life and stuff but, when it's all said and done, there's nothing amazing about this story.
It's nice in the moment and that's about it.

Soooo...um...

What is wrong with me?
Why can't I love any of these highly-read YA series all the way through? And this one isn't even through. There's more. It's not over yet.

Hey! Guess what? We get two new princesses this time! In addition to Rapunzel (Cress...not to be confused with Rampion, which is the ship, even though it is also sometimes Rapunzel's name in fairy tales...) we also randomly meet

Princess Winter Yaaaay!

This story is becoming a Disneyfied mess. Every girl has a boy. They have a lame-ass plan and it's going to work because who cares about holes in the plan? Who cares about details? This is fiction! We don't worry about that crap! And they get to wear party dresses! Ooooooh, squeeeee! There are first kisses, magical kisses. It's all so romantic and dreamy.

Wolf continues to make me sick to my brain. I hate him. Scarlet was dumped and forgotten until OH! Right! Scarlet! We need to mention her...and also that's how Princess Winter all of a sudden becomes a player. But then we forget about them both and move on.

Our new princess, Cress, she's modeling herself on soap opera stars so is a brilliant but delicate and dainty diva. She's like an earlier version of Iko (Cinder's droid friend who has been a ship but whose fondest dream has now come true!) but in shell form and she wilts easily.

The Tragedy of the Good Doctor is over the top, melodramatic, and rushed...sort of "Oh, that's right, we need to do something with this guy. Oh, hey! I know! Ta daaaa!"

And many other things that made me have Irritation.

My patience is being tried and this makes me so sad. I really liked [b:Cinder|11235712|Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)|Marissa Meyer|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388186881s/11235712.jpg|15545385] because it was so ... zazzy! And now...now everything is saccharine and unicorn poop petals of magic. The world is being taken over by a maniacal (and somewhat vapid and useless) evil queen, people are dying by the thousands, everything is horrible, mind control is bad...except there's love. And kisses. And princesses. And angsty princes/pouty werewolves/blind playboys. Squeeee!

I don't even know what I'm reading anymore but...Viva la revolucion, I guess?
Also...I know it's just me. Everyone else in the world love this book, as well as this series. Obviously, I am a curmudgeon.
Viva la curmudgeucion.

This is the story of two learning-disabled teenagers who continue to disregard all the lessons they should have learned by this point - it's BOOK THREE, folks - and, instead, continue to make the same mistakes they have made over and over for the two previous books. I mean, good lord, the secrets, the taking separate sides, the second-guessing of self and others, the sudden flares of misunderstanding! It's ALL STILL THERE! So if that's what you liked in books one and two, you will love this book.

Also: BONUS! This book is about racism! Hooray! Tris becomes a preacher, telling everyone that racism is just bullcrap that was fed to people who chose to believe what they were hearing. While that is true, I did not expect things to take that turn. All the kickassery that I'd liked in the first book was turned into TrisIsGandhi. There was some kicking of assings, but...now it's there to appease readers like me who are reading to see Tris be all tough. Thanks for throwing me that bone, but I see what this is: a textbook for children, one that is teaching proper critical thinking through character dialog. And where did Tris even get these sudden strong opinions on GD and GP? Where? And why did my darling, dear, dreadful 4bias just take on these GD/GP beliefs upon hearing them? Why? WHY? Where are their thinking abilities? GAH! You'd think that BY NOW, these kids would be a little more skeptical of information not gleaned first-hand. But these kids are morons and cannot learn anything to save their lives.
And they pull on each other all the time. I'd punch a person who was always pinching my clothing to use it as a leash or grabbing me and pulling me in for kissing even though kissing was not the thing to be doing at the time. OMG, I hate these kids. HATE.

Also, I think I got a lecture on marriage. I'm not sure why I needed to be lectured on marriage, but I think I was and that made me go all, "Whaaaa?"

Sooo...I'm glad it's done. I'm VERY interested to see how this plays out in the movie(s) because if the ending stays true to the book, it's going to piss the I-didn't-read-it people off. They'll go all Game of Thrones nutcase and those of us who read the books will be all smug and stuff. But there's a good chance they'll change the ending because heaven forbid someone dies of self-sacrifice (puke)in a Hollywood production...though the self-sacrifice would be the only way someone could die in a Hollywood production because women need to be re-taught sacrifice. There is never any other way. Women have to put all others above themselves in order to create unity, harmony, and a beautiful world of reset memories.

Review to come...at some later date.

A beloved doll is the victim of a hate crime borne of jealousy. However, this grim tale has a Happily Ever After as the doll is put back together, turned into a better, stronger entity, a doll even I would have loved SO MUCH.

I found the illustrations to be superb, they tell as much of the story as the text.

Holy guacamole, this is hilarious!

So Lulu is a beastly little thing...like if you were to mix Eloise and add a dash of Syd (from Toy Story). But she's smart and clever and hilarious, though, honestly, I'm really glad she's not my kid. In fact, she's why I didn't have kids because I didn't want to get that one.

Her beleaguered parents tell her they're going to go on a vacation without her and this sets off pandemonium in the household. To add to that, there's going to be a babysitter. This story is about Lulu trying to make her parents come back early and the babysitter go away.

Remember how Calvin was always trying to escape from/torment/outsmart Rosalyn? Yeah, same thing here. But the babysitter, she's a Trained Professional and she looks like the General of All Generals and she is actually the best babysitter in the town - maybe the world.

The whole thing is tongue-in-cheek enough to appeal to me, the grown-up, and lighthearted and funny enough for me, the kid. For instance, on page 57:
Harry Potter, to everone's bemusement and confusement, is Lulu's trombone teacher's actual name, which forced him to have to reply, whenever he meets someone new, "Sorry. No. NOT Harry Potter, boy wizard. The OTHER Harry Potter, trombone teacher." He also, much too often, has to put up with all kinds of incredibly stupid jokes about spells and potions and wands and flying broomsticks. It makes me kind of wonder, since I am the person writing this story, if maybe I should have found him a different name. But though I'm the first to admit that this might have saved him a lot of trouble, sometimes a writer has to make tough choices.
I love that kind of zingy, zany, crazy storytelling and I find it hilarious when the author pops into her own story.

Then there are the illustrations. They are fantastic. Lulu looks like a little Mr. Magoo, only angry and with hair. Her expressions are often over-the-top and ridiculous and I just find all of them - the pictures - smile-inducing. AND! All the Chapter pages (each chapter begins with a page that gives you the chapter number) are covered in big, blue dots. So cute!

Anyhow, if you enjoy [a:Lemony Snicket|36746|Lemony Snicket|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1199734355p2/36746.jpg], [a:Roald Dahl|4273|Roald Dahl|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1311554908p2/4273.jpg], [b:Calvin and Hobbes|77727|Calvin and Hobbes|Bill Watterson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388189743s/77727.jpg|2110010], [b:The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip|28748|The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip|George Saunders|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386921973s/28748.jpg|911606], [b:Olivia|770051|Olivia|Ian Falconer|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1349034348s/770051.jpg|2484218], [b:Miss Nelson Is Missing!|147732|Miss Nelson Is Missing! (Miss Nelson, #1)|Harry Allard|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389999311s/147732.jpg|142568] [b:Spy vs. Spy|8369320|Spy vs. Spy (Mega Mini Kits)|Antonio Prohias|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328815728s/8369320.jpg|13224676] or just think crazy, silly stories are fun, there's a good chance you'll like this book!

Oh yay! I just got the email telling me I won this in the First Reads giveaway! I was beginning to think they didn't love me anymore but I was wrong. Now I am excited!

3-12: Yay, it's here! It's here! Actually, it got here last week but I wasn't home. I am home now and it is here so I am reading! Hooray!

Review:
I was completely surprised by this book; I didn't expect to enjoy it quite this much. I expected it to be depressing and maybe even a little preachy. While it is definitely burdensome for the emotions, I was never actually down-and-out sad while reading it. Actually, the opposite often happened. Also, I never felt lectured in any way so I was both pleased with and entertained by this tale.

First, I liked the structure of this story; I liked it quite well. It took the shape I was so hoping for - the shape of a wrapped candy. Three separate lives come together for an instant (where the cellophane on the candy wrapper is twisted) then all spring away from each other and go their own ways in the same small area full of civil unrest leading into war (like where the cellophane is wrapped around the candy, a particularly yucky candy in this case) and then they all come together again. Just that shape made me ridiculously happy and I don't even know why. I guess because it was satisfying to see how their first interaction shaped their second interaction. Also, I'm so used to the funnel story where everyone is separate, then thrown together, then they are all in line for the rest of the story that this was a pleasant and refreshing tale-weaving.

Anyhow. I also enjoyed the language and style used in this book. It's not so foreign that it becomes incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't traveled to the Republic of Somaliland but there's enough not-America going on that you know you're not in America. Right, that sounds completely stupid; were I better at words, that would have sounded awesome. Just...you know this story takes place in Somalia.
Granted, my knowledge of Somalia is horribly limited. I read [b:Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad|8745|Desert Flower The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad|Waris Dirie|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386924384s/8745.jpg|2736618] and I saw internet headlines about pirates and I know there's a Tom Hanks movie about said pirates that's being used as a commercial for some app or another. And that's it. That is my entire bucket of knowledge about Somalia which is pretty sad. I am woefully undereducated when it comes to anything to do with Africa.
So books like this help!
Ok, I'm really no more knowledgeable about Somalia now, though it was interesting to read about the civil unrest of the 80's now that I'm an adult. This all happened when I was a kid and Somalia was a scary place like Russia but for different reasons. Now I know why it was so terrible, whereas I didn't when it was all actually happening.

I learned the why through the eyes of Deqo, Kawsar, and Filsan.

I loved these characters. I loved Deqo for the same reason I love Scout ([b:To Kill a Mockingbird|2657|To Kill a Mockingbird|Harper Lee|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1361975680s/2657.jpg|3275794]) and Byrd ([b:The Witch of Belladonna Bay|18404320|The Witch of Belladonna Bay|Suzanne Palmieri|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1383353054s/18404320.jpg|26038182]) - these are kids I would want, girls who have moxy, children who see the world the way they see it, not as adults tell them to see it. Deqo is free-spirited but kind, gentle but savvy. She's a fighter but only when necessary and she still sees wonder in the world even though the world is a terrifying place that is falling down around her.

I hated Filsan but I understood why she was such a little monster. It made her ending all the more satisfying. The path to get there was also the most horrific because she had so much to figure out and needed a lot of kicks to her teeth.

And Kawsar. I liked her and rolled my eyes at her. Privileged but not a bad person, mostly haunted by memories. She'd given up but somehow continued on. I respected her toughness.

It's a sad story yet it's also uplifting. There are tons of beautiful moments, sentences that ooze description and depiction. Here's the first one I marked (and my ARC, here, is all marked up):
The myriad buildings that Deqo is slowly learning the names and purposes of appear in the edges of her vision as she steps into the pitted road. The library for keeping books to learn from, the museum for interesting objects from the past, the schools in which children are corralled and tamed, the hotel for wayfarers with money in their pockets - the existence of all these places brings pleasure, despite her belief that as a refugee she is not welcome inside.
See? The writing is not difficult to understand but that passage made me feel this young orphan's longing to belong while also explaining everyday things from the perspective of an outsider.

This review is so incoherant but I can't sit on it anymore; I need to have something up here because I said I would. This is the muddled result.

Abridged version: I liked this book a lot. It has strong, interesting characters, it describes a time I remember but know little about, it's a good story, and I am glad I got to read it.

I am highly offended by terrible writing and I make no secret of that fact. This book does not have terrible writing; it is probably the best-written god-awful story I've ever read and in a way, that is even more offensive than a bad story poorly written.

I wish I were one of those amazing .gif-finding people because I suddenly, due to this book, completely understand the need to write a review in nothing but memes and gifs to properly express my emotions. Sadly, however, my technical skills are lacking so I'm going to bitch about this story behind the cut. It is behind a cut because I am going to discuss spoilers throughout the whole thing so if you don't want to know what happens in the book, how it ends, the bad guy's final line, just stop reading here. Actually, stop reading anyhow because the review beyond the cut is going to go on for pages. I'm very irritated right now.

Oh, wait. I want to say one more thing, aimed at the author, actually: If you can't say "rape," then you shouldn't write about it. Rape is not something we gloss over with euphemisms, with words that elicit sympathy without having to make us look at the violence and crime of rape face-on. We do not sweep rape under a rug, we do not hide rape because it is embarrassing, we do not shy away from talking about rape; talking about rape is the only way to let people know that it happens and it is horrible and that we need more tools to keep it from happening especially to children who don't know rape exists because we don't talk about it so they don't know to be aware. I am not saying you should be shocking and brutal in your description but I am saying you need to acknowledge rape so call it what it is and not "pain and then I blacked out" or "I was assaulted." If you are really a man writing this (I am hoping that a woman wrote this and is just under the guise of a male author while working through some things, though I'm not exactly sure how that could be any better, actually): you need to broaden your association with female acquaintances because, based on this book, it seems you have a very low opinion of women, as the main female is a wishy-washy, self-absorbed, non-identity who never grows at all and the other women are judgey, jealous, or victims. And don't write about rape again.

Thank you.

Ok. So. If you read the summary for this story, you know that Cassandra is out dowsing for a good place to dig a lake when she happens upon the body of a girl hung from a tree branch by a rope. She feels like she's being watched, drops her dowsing rod, and runs back through wilderness to her truck and zooms into town to tell the police. Everyone hauls ass back out to the site of the crime only to find nothing. There's no sign on the tree branch of a hanging, no rope fragments, not to mention no dangling body. We now have some possible set-ups here: Is there a creepy dude running around hanging people, watching his victims get found, and then jacking with the finder's minds by erasing all the evidence before the cops can get there OR is Cassandra sliding down to some sort of mentally ill place and has started seeing things OR are there ghosts trying to help Cassandra help them get justice because there's a killer out there stringing up girls/is this foreshadowing of death to come and Cassandra, true to her namesake, sees it before it happens in order to prevent the crime?

Any of those would have worked for me. I like the catch-the-killer suspense novels. I like the Oh-No! Main-Character-Is-Crazy-And-We're-Along-For-The-Ride books. I like ghost stories.

This was none of those. This was the most unbelievable and also boring story I've probably ever read.

Let's move to another tactic (this jumping around unnecessarily thing is employed all throughout the book so fits in great with this review)

Imagine you're a single mother with twin 11-year-old boys. You know there's a sociopath tricking children into his van, keeping and abusing them, then killing them. You suspect you are tied to this person and that he may even wish you harm due to harm he has done to you in the past.
Do you:
a) Tell the police (whose chief happens to be your BFF)/friends/anyone who will listen about your suspicions and fears and continue to share your thoughts even though you worry people will think you're crazy just like Greek Cassandra;
OR
b) Have a sit-down with your children and your parents, letting them know that you have reason to believe there's a crazy killer in the area and that everyone may be in danger so you're all just going to lie low for awhile and maybe keep a loaded gun in the house and the children are not to touch it unless the killer comes barging through their door and there is no one else to save them;
OR
c) Think about all your memories of the psychopath throughout the entire story, culminating in the memory if being raped by him in your childhood but then do nothing, tell no one because everyone will just assume that you're biased and taking revenge on this guy even though no one knows anything about the rape OR his (oh, by the way) murder of a teenage girl that you saw prior to being raped...so may as well not say a thing, not even to your children who could potentially be in danger.

Yeah. Guess which path our clueless, self-unaware, identity-free, personalityless drip of a character chooses?

Ok, so, we know there's either a killer on the loose OR Cass is losing her marbles and we have to suss out which it could be OR she has to solve the mystery based on clues left by ghosts. She's usually in the "I'm losing my marbles" camp because she does not believe in herself and it gets to the point where she puts up her dowsing, a skill that has been passed down through generations of her family and for which they all have a stellar reputation (though, right before her father succumbs to dementia, he admits that he, his dad, his dad's dad, the whole line just faked it all along and happened to get lucky more times than not so looked legit but that she is the real deal, thank goodness)(WTF?) because one of her sons gets teased for having a crazy mother.
She calls the visions that she's had since right before her brother died "The Monster" and tries not to believe in them even though the visions usually tell her true things. She chalks the hanging girl up to being a manifestation of "The Monster." It's not that she's tortured by being a Cassandra (always prognosticating and never convincing anyone and then everyone dies) as much as she's worried about what her mother thinks of all this, her mother who is an amazing science teacher as well as a super close-minded Christian, and what the townsfolk must be thinking. Pay no mind to her father who has always encouraged her dowsing skills and even visionary ways, as much as he could. It's what everyone besides her and her father think of her that matters. A lot.

I was actually thinking the hanged girl was a ghost of a victim and that all this messing with the land (because the book starts with her looking for a place to dig a lake, remember) is bringing the ghost (then ghosts) to the surface and they're pleading for help. This thought was substantiated when another ghost appeared (I think it was a different ghost? It may have been the same one only with a different hairstyle and outfit because, you know, ghosts do that. And why it showed up where it did, far away from the other one, is beyond me. I thought the second ghost was trying to show that girls had been killed over in this other area, too, but I was wrong. That would have been a good story, though) and then also when the chief of police said, "Oh, you know what? For the past X amount of years, there have been a ton of girls of about these ages going missing in this entire area and none of the cases have ever been solved, though many of them have been put down as runaways so no one looked any further into it. Interesting. Well, I have other things to do and need to not spend so much time in this story as a potential-but-not-really love interest, so, forget I said anything." It could have been ghosts of murdered girls, murdered by a killer who had ties to Cassandra's family and that is why the ghosts keep popping up in all the places Cassandra goes (which is sort of what happened. Kind of)

We've got Cass doubting herself and wishing her daddy could fix everything/tell her what to do like he used to, but he can't because his Alzheimer's is stealing him away too quickly. She's sad about that but oh well. It happens. La dee dah. She has her dead brother to think about and the specialness of her kids. Her two boys...the 11-year-old twins who sometimes behave like they're 17 and treat her like she's their stupid little sister (and she refers to herself as "my boys' mother" when sharing their interactions which makes it sound like they have another mother and she's their step-mother, or something, though that's definitely not the case because there's a whole huge story about how she got pregnant, blah blah blah)

There's lots of lyricism and prosetry going on in the writing which is jarring because this is a suspense novel, isn't it? At least partially? This type of language does not lend itself to the sense of urgency we, the readers, should be feeling. I felt a sense of urgency throughout the book because I desperately wanted something, anything, to happen. My sense of urgency was borne from the need to not be bored.
There are sentences like "...low clouds moved hastily between the open ocean and overcast sky like random thoughts under a proven theory."
I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. The hastily got me worked up but then the proven theory just threw me into a mass of confusion because: What? Her mom's the scientist, not Cass, the character who is thinking this thought about clouds and theories. She wasn't even thinking of her mom when she had that thought. Where did the random thoughts under proven theories even come from?
Then, while musing about her dad as her whole family watches the sun rise up from the ocean: "...a sunsetting man watching the sun rise" This would probably be beautiful and poetic in another book...maybe a Nicholas Sparks novel...but here? I just wanted to shove Cassandra off over the cliff.

Alright. So. I've introduced you to Cass who has visions, is a dowser, and owns not one iota of self-worth or identity. You know about her twin boys who are 11 but act much older (oh, and they're super special. They are the most special of special children you will ever read about. They're essentially unicorns in disguise). There are her parents, one in failing health and the other who condemns family members for not attending church. There's the BFF police chief who is but isn't a love interest. And there's a killer. Oh, and the dead brother. And the girl the dead brother and the killer pushed off a cliff when they were all teenagers, a murder Cass witnessed but never told anyone about until she tells us somewhere in the last 1/3 of the book. But then, there is also the live victim, the 15-year-old girl who was found in the wilderness once the police started looking in earnest for the missing hanged girl. She somehow becomes the person Cass loves most in the book, the most meaningful character in Cass' life because it's like she is like Cass in that she was abducted and raped by the same man. The thing is, though, the teenage girl has the smarts to be afraid and try to run from her tormentor. Cass? Not so much.

It sounds like there's a lot of buildup to this story, huh? Yeah, well, there's not. It meanders here and there, jumping the timeline from what seems like the present to last weekend to 20 years ago to the present to ten or eleven or twelve years ago to the time when she lived with her parents while she was pregnant to the present only then we find out the present isn't the present, that there's another present which is the present in which she is telling this tale and looking back over all these different mish-mashed moments in time and while there are bits and pieces of the story littered throughout all the timelines, it's not until the last chapter that anything happens and even when it does, it's terribly anti-climactic and boring.

The ONLY person I understood in this book was the killer. He only appeared in person for maybe three paragraphs but I got him, his motivation, his twisted ways. And I have to agree with him in one of his last moments: "I should have saved you the trouble of turning into such a fool," and dodged to the left with miraculous celerity because you know, killers and their bouncing about ways. Seriously, though, he should have saved her the trouble of turning into such a fool. But then he jumped off a cliff to spare himself the agony of getting apprehended and everything came to a nice and tidy full-circle close (cuz he pushed that girl off the cliff so long ago, remember) And that was how this whole thing ended. Yelling, dialogue, the end. No "You raped me, you fucking asshole! And this little girl, too!" and Cass shoving the killer off the cliff. No. He just runs and jumps and ta da! All done.

And so the story turns out to be less of a suspense novel, less of a ghost story, not at all in-the-mind-of-a-woman-who-is-losing-touch-with-reality tale, as it is a "Accept Yourself" fable. Because that is the moral of the story: Be who you are and don't worry about what everyone else thinks of you.
So heartwarming.

I hated this book so much.

This is one I should have read.
It's not that the reader is abyssmal but he's definitely not the best choice for this story. His pacing is too precise, as is his enunciation; he would be better suited to read books for a younger audience...and maybe books that don't feature any females because the way he voiced all the women in this ghost tale made me think he thinks females are generally stupid creatures and that rubbed me the wrong way.

So I think I'd have liked this more had it been done in my head instead of by this audio production company but I made a mistake and a book loses a star.

Here's what I liked:
-There was no cheaping out on the gore and it wasn't gore for the sake of being gruesomely shocking, at least, not for the most part. I liked that there was no sparing the details for the sake of gentle readers.
-Anna. For a ghost, she's pretty well-developed.
-Thomas and ... Carmel? Is her name Carmel? I liked that they were the standard background characters beefed up, given some pizzaz, and neither of them had to take the traditional role opposite Cas. Nice!

Here's what I didn't like:
-The reader. I mentioned that already.
-The cover. It was very misleading; it looks like the cover of a book of ghost stories for 10-year-olds. Only the hem of Anna's super pretty dress (it was rather plain in the book, right?) has blood on it and look at her hair swishing cartoonily in the wind. This cover uses sweetness to soften the blow of scary and that is not what happens in this story. I probably would have passed this over, thinking it was a softscare had I not seen so many high marks from friends.
-Thesius Cassio and his mother. I didn't like either of them. I suspect I didn't like Cass because of the reader but I didn't like the mom because she didn't come across as the kind of woman Cas seems to think she is. It's like she was playing around at being a white witch and a mom and a homemaker and she's really just a dithery and distracted ditz. That could also have been the reader; he made her sound stoned and dim. But it may have been the character, too. I'm not sure.
-The ending. I pretty much knew where everything was going but once we were in the last chapter, I was confused as to how everything suddenly all got where it was and why and where'd you come from...no, sorry, can you explain it again? I'm still not getting it. WHY are you here and HOW are doing the actual BEING HERE thing? And then it was the epilogue and I was left highly dissatisfied and wondering what the hell just happened. Then I remembered this is going to be a series because it is illegal to write a book that is not part of a series. You get sent to the firing squad if you even try a one-off and a team of hacks writes two more books with your name on it to follow your supposed stand-alone. That is how serious this is.

I think it didn't help that I'd just read School Spirits not too long ago and the two stories are not all that different, though this one is more fun in its spookiness and is mostly better-written. Still, that story may have stolen a bit of impact from this one just because of proximity.

Whatever the case, I've learned one thing: I'll be sure to NOT listen to the next one.

I just love these books so much!

My hometown library still has these books, several copies. They're all library bound because they are often used; I worry how much longer they'll be able to hold up.

They're creepy in audiobook format, as well.

Now that I'm all fired up about these stories after reading [b:Monster Chefs|17555125|Monster Chefs|Brian Anderson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1367758027s/17555125.jpg|24468427], which was the complete opposite, and then getting all snarky on some poor guy I don't even know's review, I thought, "Man, I am so glad I own two of these books and now I must scour used book stores for the third!" and THEN I thought, "Wait-oh! I'll bet I can find this being read online somewhere! Because we, the library, read books for kids all the time and post said readings online so it only makes sense I can go find an audio/video version out there somewhere!" Because that is how the internet works. You want something, you look for it, there it is.
Lo and behold: I did. It's from the actual audiobook. I found all three. I am so happy about this.
Now we must hope these never get taken down.

Because, really, kids need to learn to be horrified safely. This book has acted as a litmus test for ten bajillion children in the past 30+ years. We'd brace ourselves, take a deep breath, and open the book to see if we could look at the pictures without freaking out. If we could make it all the way through the book with only mild shivers or less, then it was time to try it again... AT NIGHT!
Now when I read these books (they're in my box o' Halloween things), I think, "Wow! This would have scared the crap out of me as a kid! Wait! These DID scare the crap out of me as a kid! That is why I love them and that is why I am careful in deserted areas."
Scaring to educate! Yay!