I jumped at the chance to read DeadGirl by B.C. Johnson – I
loved the cover and title. Today I'm participating in the blog tour with my review.
About DeadGirl:
DeadGirl,
by B.C. Johnson
Genre: young-adult,
urban-fantasy/paranormal-romance
Publisher: Curiosity Quills
Press
Date
of Publication:
November 6, 2014
Cover
Artist: Andy Garcia
Description:
Dead is such a strong word …
Lucy Day, 15 years old, is murdered
on her very first date. Not one to take that kind of thing lying down, she
awakens a day later with a seemingly human body and more than a little
confusion. Lucy tries to return to her normal life, but the afterlife keeps
getting in the way.
Zack, her crush-maybe-boyfriend,
isn’t exactly excited that she ditched him on their first date. Oh, and Abraham,
Lucy’s personal Grim Reaper, begins hunting her, dead-set on righting the error
that dropped her back into the spongy flesh of a living girl. Lucy must put her
mangled life back together, escape re-death, and learn to control her
burgeoning powers while staying one step ahead of Abraham.
But when she learns the devastating
price of coming back from the dead, Lucy is forced to make the hardest decision
of her re-life — can she really sacrifice her loved ones to stay out of the
grave?
The story is told from the point of view of Lucy, a funny,
snarky 15-year-old swooning over her first love. Several things were quite
refreshing in this story. The main group of kids are generally wholesome, their
parents are involved, and the confusion of just being a teenager was realistically
shown. Sadly, Lucy is killed after her first date – and wakes up not entirely
alive or dead.
The story-line was unique, also refreshing in the midst of
vampires, angels, and faeries. Not to mention chosen ones and girls getting
tested to determine what they’ll be/who they’ll marry. So kudos to the author
for that as well.
The flow was confusing at times - sometimes that worked
because Lucy was confused, other times my attention faded away, waiting for
things to start making sense. The fun internal dialog also went a little too
far at times. I would have advised cutting at least 20% of the book and don’t
think the reader would have missed a thing. But it was still a fun story which
made me WANT to get back to the plot rather than put down the book.
Aside from a lack of editing, this book also displayed
exactly why/how not to do a prologue. The prologue starts excitingly where
things change for the main character. At the end of the prologue, Lucy is dead,
exactly as expected by the jacket copy. Then chapter one takes us back to a
rambling past, prior to the incident, leaving the reader wondering what they’ve
missed, especially since the prologue doesn’t use Lucy’s name. I understand why
the author did this – otherwise nothing interesting would have happened except
excessive internal dialogue for three chapters. My suggestion would have been
to trim the real beginning and move quickly to the exciting moment in a linear
fashion. No confusion, no frustration.
In spite of this, the story was unique, fun, and a
refreshing look at more typical teenagers. I’d recommend it, but tell the
reader not to be frustrated when they get bored, keep going, you won’t miss
anything important. Oh, I LOVED the way the author transitioned back to the
timeline after the murder – so for that, I’ll forgive the silly prologue
arrangement!
About the Author:Born in Southern
California, B.C. Johnson has been writing since he realized it was one of the
few socially acceptable ways to tell people a bunch of stuff you just made up
off the top of your head. He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, and an
undisclosed amount of college before deciding that weird odd jobs were a far
greater career path.
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