Review: was this a joke?
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 05 9, 2012
Ok, let me start with the statement that I love ghost stories, LOVE 'em.  I am also not someone who throws a book down in disgust and doesn't finish it. I finished this book...read every stinkin' word, first with interest, then in puzzlement, progressing to disbelief.  My thoughts are as follows:1.  Not one, not two, but EVERY character in this story behaves in a completely unbelievable fashion (oh the little kid almost gets hit by a car then disappears into the cemetery, gosh, maybe we ought to look then call the police tomorrow if we don't see her, but ...gosh.. totally forgot about that.2.  There is no consistency between characters and scenes. None...at...all3.  Story lines are started, then completely dropped, with an entirely different plotline popping up.  Kind of like flipping channels on a tv, but with the same actors on screen...mostly.4.  If you are going to write about cemeteries, go to one.  Coffins do not litter the ground; those are called headstones or monuments.  Coffins are buried fairly deep, like 6 feet or so, not just under the topsoil.  The newly dead are embalmed and jaw shut before the burial, which usually takes more than..oh say 12 hours after she died on a plane...in another jurisdiction.  Oh,  and the puritans of the Salem witch trial era did not use mausoleums, particularly not for a victim of the witch trials, nor would you be able to just pop that coffin open and take a look.5.  If you are going to write about victims of the Salem witch trials, do some research beyond grabbing their names. i.e. their remains were not chained together and "lost," they didn't all die the same way or in the same week. These were real people and an historical tragic event.  Either treat it with a little respect and research or make up an entirely different event.6.  Don't have the court say one thing, then act like the witch trials themselves, but have no development of that before sending minors to jail with no charges, but, hey, cell bars can't hold these girls anyway, huh?7.  Don't rip off Norman Bates and put him in a witch hat. Just don't.8.  Ok, minor point.  The plane ride from Vermont to Boston is not a long trip to the point of exhaustion for a teenager unless they got routed through dfw, but in your story it is one flight, you know, where the old woman with the portent of doom died.9.  Use a thesaurus.  Look up "bragged," pick a synonym.  Repeat process for other words.10.  Oh, cell phones do work across state lines, and when the kid is trapped with a psycho killer, roaming charge be d***d. The state line thing was a recurring factor, thus a recurring irritant.  The phone would work, as would 911.When I started this story, it was with the attitude that this will be a fun YA ghost story; then I decided that it must have been written BY a kid, so don't be cruel or snarky.  After reading the blurb after the ending that the author is a columnist who has been published in several outlets, I decided to write this, my first negative review.  I usually just forget about it if I hate a book, never understanding people giving bitterly negative reviews to a free book; but this story is just badly written and badly researched (yes, you should do some research, even for YA fiction, maybe even, ESPECIALLY for YA fiction.)  Some of the free-form "plotting" could have been developed into a decent story - there were glimpses of what could be - but it just didn't happen. If your kids (or you) enjoyed this story, just understand that there are infinitely better ones out there, some that even have some accuracy about Salem and the witch trial, and, frankly, some that even make some sort of sense. Loosely tying together some creepy imagery does not make a story.