Ghost House by Alexandra Adornetto

This book left me so torn. On the one hand, it was a total pile of clichés. On the other hand...damn it, it worked somehow.

Ghost House tells the story of Chloe, a girl with the power to see ghosts. After the death of her mother, Chloe's father is unable to cope and so sends her and her brother off to England to stay with their grandmother. Whilst there, Chloe becomes entangled with a vicious ghost called Isobel and falls in love with another ghost, Alex.

I had the strangest sense of deja-vu whilst reading this. Maybe it's just the fact it is a cliché storm but I swear I've encountered this exact story before. That aside, I couldn't help but really enjoy this book. It's predictable but the writing style and the characters manage to save it somehow. The only part I had trouble swallowing was the end. That was one cliché too far for me.

Am I glad I read this book? Despite that I feel like I shouldn't like it, yes I am. It's an absorbing little tale and better than your average YA book. It's just a shame that it couldn't be a bit more original in its plot.

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Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Upon finishing Shiver, I wasn't so much left wanting more as I was left curious as to what else the story could do. After all, the first book was wrapped up so well by the end that I hardly saw the need for a sequel. I picked up Linger thinking that it was an unnecessary attempt at dragging things out to make more money. I am pleased to say that I was very much mistaken.

In fact, not only did I enjoy Linger but I actually thought it vastly improved upon the first book. My main issues regarding Shiver were with how difficult it was to warm to Grace and with how the side characters seemed a little flat. Both of these are fixed wonderfully in this book. Isabelle gets her own little subplot involving my favourite character of the series, new addition Cole. This both fleshes out her character and introduces another, more intriguing one, injecting some much-needed life into the beautifully told but admittedly rather dull Grace/Sam relationship.

And what about Grace herself? Well, this book is really about her coming to terms with possibly changing into a wolf, a twist which is obvious in hindsight but I genuinely didn't see coming at the time. I like it a lot as far as plots for the sequel could have gone and it shakes up the standard paranormal romance thing of 'one partner is human, the other is mystical'. The ending is an obvious sequel hook but it doesn't bother me as much as it would if the first book had ended that way.

I guess upon reflection that this book still suffers from one of the issues of the first one-that is again, nothing much particularly happens in it. But the characters were a lot stronger which helped disguise this fact and it felt like a more varied and interesting plot on the whole. Another issue I have with it is the disappearance of Shelby but I'm guessing she'll be saved for the third one, like Victoria was in Twilight.

Are my hopes high for the third one? After reading Linger, I'm definitely more intrigued than I was. Whether the conclusion can live up to it or not will remain to be seen.

Overall Score:

.5

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

As far as books which have been turned into movies go, I will almost always prefer the book. This isn't some weird snobbish thing-I believe a movie is worth just as much as a book in terms of merit, and (depending on the movie and the book) sometimes more. It just so happens that usually I like the book better.

City of Bones is no exception.

I was on chapter ten of this book when I went to see the movie. After enduring what was possibly the most boring 2 hours of my life, I really had very little desire to finish it but I'm glad I did. This book is a hundred times better than the movie. For one thing it's actually pretty funny, a quality I find rare in books. For another, Clary actually does stuff in the book which doesn't involve screaming and falling over all the time.

But anyway, this isn't about my issues with the movie. Taken on its own, City of Bones is a pretty decent book. As I said, the dialogue manages to be pretty funny at times and the secondary characters are all likeable and interesting. My main issue comes from the main characters. That is to say, I don't actually particularly like either of them.

You might question how I can enjoy a book when I don't like the main characters and to be honest, I don't really have an answer for you. Clary is a little bland and suffers from the whole 'hostile and snarky for no real reason' problem which plagues 'feisty' female characters. Jace is just an asshole, plain and simple. But the rest of the characters I liked on the whole and for whatever reason, I was able to look past my disinterest in the two main ones.

The twist at the end I actually really liked, weird though it was. If I hadn't seen the movie first then it would have been genuinely surprising and it's definitely something which hasn't been done before. It's also very brave in YA fiction so Clare deserves some bonus points for that. Which she prompty loses for naming her heroine 'Clary'.

Overall, City of Bones is a moderately enjoyable book. It doesn't make my top ten list perhaps but I will be checking out the rest of the series and it's certainly an improvement from the snorefest of a movie. It's probably worth reading and you could certainly do a lot worse.

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Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Paranormal romance is always sort of a sore subject isn't it? Like it or not, the genre has become synonymous with Twilight and all the sparkly terribleness that implies. I'm not generally a fan of straight romance books anyway (especially those aimed specifically at teenagers) but since wolves are my favourite animal and since I was able to buy the whole series on offer, I decided to take a chance with Shiver.

Am I glad I took that chance? Well, it's sort of hard to say.

First off, Shiver is by no means a bad book. It has an intriguing and refreshing take on werewolves (something which should be saluted) and a narrative style which, while it might not be everyone's cup of tea, flows well and is dreamy to read. Unfortunately, what lets it down is its characters.

Let's start with the main characters, Sam and Grace. Sam is certainly likeable enough-he's a typical indie dream boy perhaps but he gets decent development and is easy to empathise with. Grace on the other hand...she's presented as the sort of girl who is reserved and private with her emotions, which is certainly a nice change from the usual whiny female protagonists that seem to plague these types of books. However, this does mean that you reach the end of the book without really getting the sense that you know her-not great considering she's one of the narrators. She's not a terrible character but she's not terribly compelling either. She's just sort of...there.

The side characters in Shiver are also ridiculously flat. Apart from Sam's 'family', every other character basically amounts to little more than a plot device. They have the shadows of a personality but nothing that really brings them to life.

As I said earlier, I bought the whole Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy at once, and after reading this book I was surprised by the fact there were two more. The book seems to come to a natural conclusion and one which works well. Does this bode well for the sequels? Probably not. Further books have the potential to seem like padding if there's no substantial plot to carry them. However, I have optimism for this series and as far as paranormal romances go, you could do a lot worse.

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