(Review) The Ghost and the Goth

TITLE: The Ghost and the Goth
AUTHOR: Stacey Kade
PUB DATE: July 2010
PUBLISHER: Hyperion Books for Children
PAGES: 288

SOURCE: I received this from Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews that she had donated to an ARC tour that I am a part of. Thanks Tynga for donating this book to the arc tour.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
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?

MY THOUGHTS:
I believe that this is Stacey’s debut novel, please let me know if this is wrong. She is also a author from the Chicago area. (Another favorite city of mine)

When I first heard about The Ghost and The Goth I was very curious about it because it sounded like a good book so when I saw this on the arc tour site I quickly jumped at the chance to sign up for it. I am so happy that I got to read this because I really enjoyed it. I also thought that the cover suited the book very well. I thought that the cover represented Alona and Will very well.

The book is told in alternating points of view from Alona and Will. Which worked really well for the book because we were able to find out more about Will and Alona.

Alona is your typical high school girl, popular but she is also the mean girl. Sneaking out of gym class to make a call on her cell, she doesn’t watch where she is going and accidentally gets hit my a school bus. She dies instantly although she really doesn’t go away where. She is stuck between two worlds.

Will is your typical high school guy the out cast goth guy. The only thing that sets Will apart is that he is diagnosed with schizophrenia (but he really isn’t) and he is the only one who can see Alona along with the rest of the ghosts he is surrounded by.

Alona quickly realizes that she really isn’t that well liked among her classmates and she is quickly forgotten. Being a ghost she quickly discovers that her so called best friend and boyfriend have been hooking up and she never knew about it. There is even talk about Alona actually killing herself, which isn’t true.

When Alona realizes that Will can see her, she quickly realizes that she has to use Will to get to go where she needs to go, heaven. She has never liked Will but over the course of the book you see that she has changed her opinion of him. I loved the chemistry between the two and I laughed at a few incidents between them such as the bed breaking.

Can these two work together before its too late?

I really enjoyed the book even though its paranormal and I have to say its not your usual paranormal book there is no vampires, werewolves etc just a ghost trying to find her way to where she is suppose to be.

There is going to be a sequel called The Queen of the Dead coming out on June 7, 2011. I can’t wait for this one to come out.