K. L. Denman

Emotions run high as a girl's life hangs on the line and no one seems willing to help a best friend save her.

Laney's best friend, Brigid, has the ability to let her soul travel to the past and talk to the ancestors of people she's touching. She's long since embraced this ability, and Laney does her best to protect her while she uses these sessions to help others. During one such moment, disaster strikes, and the person Brigid is touching dies, leaving Brigid's soul stuck in the past and her show more body in a coma. The only way to save her is the touch of a blood relative of the person she was helping, but the person was seeking assistance because they wanted to discover, who their parents truly were due to an adoption. Add that Brigid's mother is a religious fanatic, who can't know of her daughter's powers or she'll consider her a demon, and the clock is ticking. Especially since Brigid's mother is dead set on euthanasia.

The book begins in a very grabbing way. Not only does the author make the abilities of Brigid, the friendship between the girls, and the danger of the situation clear immediately, the tension and desperation hit already a few pages in. That Laney can't fail in her attempt to save her friend's life is obvious and makes it so easy to root for. Plus, there's all sorts of drama and directions going on in the background, which she needs to discover and weave through. Brigid's mother barely appears in the novel, but the horrid ripples the woman causes feed palpable desperation. Teens will have no problem relating to this lack of control and power they have over parents, and the problem stubbornness can cause.

This is more of an emotional read than suspense, and the paranormal aspect, while interesting, happens as an undertone, since it has to do with her friend and not her. There's also a little romance direction, which works fine but wasn't necessary to the story...outside of the fact that romance is always heart-warming. Everything rounds off nicely and the story gives some food for thought in important and difficult themes, such as religious fanaticism, parent-child relations, and euthanasia. The plot does keep things rolling, and there are plenty of surprises. Everything works out a bit too simple to solve the issue, but not enough to ruin the story.

It's an interesting read, which addresses several important issues and adds enough tension to keep things interesting the entire way through. show less

This story captured me instantly. The story of the main character with PTSD was very realistic right down to the thoughts and actions mismatching. As a PTSD survivor myself I was so fully engaged that when the "trigger" moment happened, I was triggered. Therefore the quick wrap up after that was doubly disappointing for me. I would have loved for the healing to have taken as long as the build up.

Easily read, well written, I finished it in less than 2 hours.

At first, this book seems to be about two teenage boys embarking on one of the stupidest plans ever. Inspired by a documentary on the Ice Man, one has convinced the other to climb up into the Canadian Rockies and freeze himself, along with examples of modern technology and culture, as evidence for posterity. The book is largely taken up with Kit's preparations for doing so.

Fortunately, for both Kit and the reader, the book is really about much more than this moronic scheme. As we follow Kit show more through his preparations, we begin to see that perhaps all is not what it seems. Through his interactions with others, we learn that Kit used to be a good kid - he had friends, got along well with his family, did reasonably well in school. But a few months before the start of the action, everything changes. We get a sense of this only in the way that others react to Kit, but this is a startlingly effective method of portraying this change. Throughout the book, we also get a feel for what others noticed in Kit that caused them to change their perceptions, although, in a first-person narrative, the changes are only subtly observable to the reader. It isn't until almost the end of the book that we begin to understand what is really going on with Kit, and how dangerous it potentially is. show less

I read this when I was a little too old I think (late 20s), because the twist was a little too obvious to me right from the start. That being said, it was a solid portrayal of a teenager struggling with mental illness. The author pulled off writing from the main character's perspective, and his perspective of what he thinks is going on very well.