Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen

Title: Past Midnight
Author: Mara Purnhagen
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 216
Series: Past Midnight #1
Description from Goodreads:
Let me set the record straight. My name is Charlotte Silver and I'm not one of those paranormal-obsessed freaks you see on TV…no, those would be my parents, who have their own ghost-hunting reality show. And while I'm usually roped into the behind-the-scenes work, it turns out that I haven't gone unnoticed. Something happened on my parents' research trip in Charleston—and now I'm being stalked by some truly frightening other beings. Trying to fit into a new school and keeping my parents' creepy occupation a secret from my friends—and potential boyfriends—is hard enough without having angry spirits whispering in my ear. All I ever wanted was to be normal, but with ghosts of my past and present colliding, now I just want to make it out of high school alive….

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I love when I find a book that completely exceeds my expectations. I thought Past Midnight was going to be good -- certainly not bad, but ghost stories are often hit-or-miss with me, and I thought "good" was as good as it was going to get. But...I was wrong. And in times like these, I love being wrong.

Charlotte's parents are professional ghost-story debunkers. They believe in residual energy, nothing more. They never live in one place for very long, always on the move to debunk more ghost stories. So when they settle in South Carolina with the intent to stay there long-term, Charlotte is thrilled. Until a pair of ghosts turns up in her bedroom...and her new friends turn out to have ghosts of their own.

I loved the friendships between Charlotte and the cheerleaders and Charlotte and Noah. As much as I love romances, I loved that this wasn't a romance. I loved that college was mentioned - it's realistic. I can attest to the fact that high school seniors spend a lot of time thinking about college, so that was a nice touch. And I loved that I didn't solve the mystery before the end of the book - it kept me reading to find out what was going to happen next. Mostly, I just really liked Charlotte as a narrator, too. And, okay, I've read books set in Charleston where you can tell the author has never actually been there, but Mara Purnhagen got it right. So the book gets bonus points for that too. :)

Past Midnight hasn't earned a place on my all-time-favorites, read-them-over-and-over list...but it was definitely an awesome, fun read (and pretty short, too, if you don't want something long). It gets the thumbs-up from me! Check it out if you get the chance.

Oh, and before I go: is this cover gorgeous or what? I'm not sure what about it appeals to me so much, but I love it. It's awesome.

Review: Paper Towns

Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 305
Rating: 5 stars
From the book jacket:
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life -- dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge -- he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues -- and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.

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Ever since I started this book, I have been asking myself one question: WHY did it take me so long to start reading this?! Paper Towns was fantastic. Simply fantastic.

It's written from a guy's perspective, so there is guy humor, which was a little weird for me in places because, well, I'm not a guy. But that aside -- gahh, I don't even know what to say to express my love for Paper Towns. It's funny, it's sweet, it's heartbreaking, it's beautiful. I laughed out loud several times while I was reading it (I love when books can do that), but there were parts too that were just so full of meaning, and it's just awesome. This book is made of awesome.

It is one of the most quotable books I've read in a long time (I'd share a few, but then I wouldn't ever stop and this post would go on forever, which I don't think you want). I got this one from the library, but I'm thinking I may have to go buy a copy, like, right now, because it's one that I already know I'm going to want to read again.

I'm not actually telling you a whole lot about the book, I guess, but that's because I really don't know what to say. The characters are so real, and the story is engaging, and I couldn't put it down. I laughed out loud a lot (yeah, I said that already) and it really made me think (which I love), and also, there are frequent literary references and poetry quotes (that right there is enough to win me over). If you haven't read Paper Towns, I don't know what you're still waiting for. Go get a copy right now.

Links:
John Green's website

Review: Before I Fall

*This review was originally written before the creation of Bookworm Boulevard. It has been reformatted and reposted here for archiving purposes.

Title: Before I Fall

Author: Lauren Oliver

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 470

Rating: 5 stars

Description from Goodreads:

What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all - looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12th should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it's her last. The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. In fact, she relives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.

Oh my goodness. Where to begin? Before I Fall is amazing. So, I have to confess, for the first few chapters of the book, I didn't like it at all. I hated the main characters (except Kent, who the main characters hate), and I expected the constant talk of sex, drugs, alcohol, and obsessive popularity to get really old really fast. I was prepared to hate the book.

I was wrong. Yes, at the beginning of the novel, Samantha ("Sam") Kingston and her friends, Lindsay, Ally, and Elody, are - there's no other word for it - bitchy. They're mean to everyone, they're bullies just because they can be, they can get away with anything and do whatever they want. They talk about sex a lot, and they drink a lot just because they can, and they smoke and cut class and all that other stuff that gives teenagers a bad reputation.

But then Sam dies. And after her nightmarish last day, she wakes up again the same morning. She relives her last day seven times over. During this miraculous final week, she changes. Sam starts to understand things about the world around her, and about herself. The question is, will one day be enough to change everything?

By the end of the novel, I didn't hate Sam or her friends at all. I sympathized with Sam, I wanted to just give her a big hug and make things okay, and I will confess that there were a couple of parts near the end that almost made me cry. I sat down and read the entire second half in one afternoon. It was fantastic. Lauren Oliver has some kind of magic with storytelling, to be able to create a character so real and to change the reader's attitude toward her so completely. It is absolutely worth the first couple of chapters (although the prologue may be compelling enough on its own; very well set up) to get to the rest of the story. READ IT. Please. It took me a little longer than I liked to get into it, but once I did, it was absolutely fantastic. Definitely, definitely check this one out.

Links:

Lauren Oliver's website

Lauren Oliver's blog

Review: All Unquiet Things

*This review was originally written before the creation of Bookworm Boulevard; it has been reformatted and reposted here for archiving purposes.

Title: All Unquiet Things
Author: Anna Jarzab
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Pages: 352
Rating: 4 stars
Description from Goodreads:
Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School's most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed.

Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didn't answer the phone call Carly made before she died. If he had, maybe he could have helped her. Now he can't get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind.

Audrey: She's the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton's fast crowd in the first place, and now she regrets it - especially since she's convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail. Audrey thinks the murderer is someone at Brighton, and she wants Neily to help her find out who it is.

As reluctant allies Neily and Audrey dig into their shared past with Carly, her involvement with Brighton's dark goings-on comes to light. But figuring out how Carly and her killer fit into the twisted drama will force Audrey and Neily to face hard truths about themselves and the girl they couldn't save.

I will admit it took me a while to get into All Unquiet Things, but after the first few chapters I was completely hooked. Long story short, it's essentially a murder mystery. A year before the story starts, Carly Ribelli is found dead with four gunshot wounds to the chest. Her uncle, the father of her cousin and best friend, Audrey, was convicted of the murder, but Audrey doesn't believe her dad is guilty. So Audrey enlists the help of Carly's ex-boyfriend, Neily - who was still in love with Carly - to help her figure out who really did it. The story is a mix of murder mystery and high school drama; the focus is on the murder mystery, but the clues are embedded in the high school drama.

The story alternates between Neily and Audrey's perspectives. It's really well-written, maybe a bit slow at times but still very engaging, and the story - oh my goodness. Some of it is a bit hard to believe, but Anna Jarzab makes it believable. And the characters are so real and well-developed and amazing. They each have their own distinctive voices, but the transitions from one narrator to the other are (mostly) very smooth. There is some language and content that might not be appropriate for younger teens, but to anyone who doesn't mind that stuff, I would absolutely recommend this book.

Links:
Anna Jarzab's website