12 February 2013

Book Review: Notes From Ghost Town by Kate Elison


Title:  Notes From Ghost Town
Author:  Kate Ellison
File type:  eARC
Release date:  February 12th, 2013
Genre:  YA, mystery, thriller

They say first love never dies...
From critically acclaimed author Kate Ellison comes a heartbreaking mystery of mental illness, unspoken love, and murder. When sixteen-year-old artist Olivia Tithe is visited by the ghost of her first love, Lucas Stern, it’s only through scattered images and notes left behind that she can unravel the mystery of his death. 
There’s a catch: Olivia has gone colorblind, and there’s a good chance she’s losing her mind completely—just like her mother did. How else to explain seeing (and falling in love all over again with) someone who isn’t really there?
With the murder trial looming just nine days away, Olivia must follow her heart to the truth, no matter how painful. It’s the only way she can save herself.
The story starts of with Olivia and Lucas-best friends, being cute and flirty, which escalated into a make-out session. Olivia ends up color blind, which is a huge deal because she is an artist. Lucas mistakes her reaction as a rejection and he fled the scene. They don’t talk for a week and soon Olivia finds out her mum killed him. After spending months avoiding everyone she sees Lucas’ ghost and he has some new, her mum wasn’t responsible for his death. So Olivia starts investigating to clear her mum’s name.

The main reason I love reading mystery and thriller novels is that they have a lot of spooky, unpredictable scenes. I did like this book more than I did Hysteria, the last similar book I’ve read but there was still something missing and that is the excitement of finally finding out who is the murderer which Notes From Ghost Town didn’t have. Sure, we find out who killed Olivia’s first crush but it wasn’t as gripping as I hoped.

So, first of, the main character is not annoying, which is a huge plus. She does ignore her best friend a lot . Olivia’s stepsister is the most adorable character I’ve come across this year.  The new love interest, Austin, a rich an popular guy is also entertaining. For most of the part I think he kept Olivia from spending any more time alone. He got her out of her comfort zone.

I liked the book itself; the writing style was entertaining and didn’t bore me at all. I just wished it had a twist of two. It was a little bit too predictable for my taste. Still, a decent read. 



7 comments:

  1. Great review! I have this downloaded on my Kindle and fell in love with the cover, hope the story lives up to it.

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  2. I love books with mysteries as well. I'll be watching out for this one. :)

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  3. Hey this sounds nice! Shall be on a lookout for it! :)

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  4. I really liked this one! I just finished yesterday. Funny you mentioned Hysteria because I had read it right before. lol I do get what you are saying about the murder mystery not having a huge buildup. I thought it all came together really well though. :)

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  5. What is a point of thrillers if they're not spooky! xD Even though this book needs some twists still maybe I'll read it cause it sounds decent enough :)

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  6. I thought the book was very spooky to me. The parts where she was at the carousel...creepy! I liked the whole "I must be going crazy" issues, it really notched up the suspense! Great review!

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  7. That carousel was creepy. I don't know how could she work there. I get chills imagining all sort of bad things happening there after dark while that spooky music is playing.

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