Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Ghostsitter by Shelly Brown (review)



by Shelly Brown

(note:  This title will be published later this year) link

Blurb:  Tiffany Hart dreams of one thing, to be class president. But dreams turn to nightmares when she ends up almost dead in an abandoned slaughterhouse and develops the gift of ghost-seeing. Unfortunately she only knows one person who can help her shake her ghoulish problem, her neighbor and the weirdest boy at school, Justin Henderson. Justin has been seeing spirits since he was nine, a creepy claim that has earned him the privilege of eating lunch by himself for years. Together they start to unravel a mystery with dead orphans, a white witch, and phantom spiders. To save their lives (and afterlives of innocent children) they must face a terrifying specter and a ghastly woman who isn't afraid of hurting kids, dead or alive.

Amazon link

*************************

My review:


4.25 out of 5 stars

Ghostsitter by Shelly Brown is a young adult paranormal story that features Tiffany Hart, who discovers that Justin Henderson’s may not be as weird as she thought, because she is also having very odd experiences.  She refuses to let anything stand in the way of her quest to become class president, and that includes ghosts who shriek at her and an issue with asthma, and a persistent neighbor who elicits mixed reactions in her parents!

This fun story portrays the angst and challenge of being a fifth-grader with the additional complications of dealing with ghosts.  Justin’s method of coping is not appealing to Tiffany, who is obviously a young girl who does things the way she wants.  The relationship between these two twelve year olds is both sweet and awkward, but the brutal honesty that Tiffany displays toward Justin is balanced by his persistent adoration of her that he has a lovely metaphysical explanation for. 

I enjoyed the gradually unfolding mystery that required Tiffany to undergo a complete transformation of belief and the descriptions of the challenges that had to be overcome.  I like that not everything was a success and that both of the main characters had a chance to face adversity and grow, and learned to look at events from a different perspective.  I wasn’t quite enamored of Tiffany’s parents because their reactions seemed a bit caricaturish to me but I loved the overall story and would love to read more by this author. I think this story would appeal to children in the pre-teen to early teen ages who like tales that border on being a little spooky and have an intriguing mystery to solve.


A copy of this title was provided to me for review


No comments:

Post a Comment