I read a comment thread where someone described this. They made it sound campy and clearly found the book stupid. I was so confused, because it sounded dark. So I picked it up for myself. This is a sad, serious, dark book about girls trying to find vengeance for their friend, who was murdered by her boyfriend. It starts with painting murals depicting Greek legends. Their friend is now a ghost and lives in a van one of them drives.

This would have worked better as a series of interlinked vignettes. The author knows how to write good transitions and I liked the imagery. The format of the novel, though, was repetitive. The author made her point and kept making it. She tried to world-build increasingly with each chapter, but it all blended together for me. The podcasts were interesting and I was glad for them. I outright skipped Cassie's sections after awhile because I find poetry and prose used how she did, uninteresting. Apparently they had lots of plot in them.

The two ex-girlfriends were supposed to be different people but sounded exactly the same. I never bought the romance between them, and was especially unimpressed with how and why they got back together. A shining example of plot contrivance and flat, under-developed characters. The author was going for Enemies to Lovers plus second chance romance and just failed completely. Instead, it came off as "the town only has two non-heterosexual women, so of COURSE they must get together" framed by "This is Your Author Speaking."

The characters were all freshly eighteen, and it's tricky to write. I think the author did okay, but am glad this is categorized and treated as YA.
This wasn't the book for me. ( )

This was an incredible sophomore YA novel. A story of three friends and the aftermath of a school shooting, two survived, one died at the hands of the shooter. This is the story of a friendship that is able to cross the boundaries of earth and heaven. Cassie is shot and killed by her abusive boyfriend, Vivian is hit in the crossfire. Beck was not there that day and blames herself for Cassie’s death and Vivian’s injury. When Cassie appears to them in Beck’s VW bus, the two friends begin a quest of vengeance and justice for Cassie. Told from multiple perspectives (Beck & Vivian, Cassie in novel in verse format & the We Can Be Heroes Podcast), this is a heart wrenching & uplifting story about justice and the bond of friendship.

TW: domestic abuse, gun violence, neglect ( )

While I enjoyed the social justice aspect of this book with the murals and the podcast, the increasingly real appearance of Cassie's ghost didn't work for me. ( )

This author is wonderful!! ( )