This was a fun and quick read that I quite enjoyed. Charlotte Silver is a character I warmed up to immediately, and the premise that her "ghost-hunting" parents use involving paranormal occurrences was intriguing and certainly made me think.The outsider teenager storyline with Charlotte and her new friend Avery and the secret involving Adam and Jared was well done and rolled out nicely.I'm intrigued enough to want to check out the rest of the books in this series that follows Charlotte Silver's paranormal adventures. Charlotte Silver's parents are famous paranormal investigators and skeptics. When the family ends up in Charleston, they encounter a very strong spirit that attaches itself to Charlotte and begins complicating her life. Adding to Charlotte's woes, after moving to a new town, starting at a new school and somehow landing a new bestie who just happens to be the head of the popular crowd, Charlotte finds herself embroiled in a mystery surrounding said bestie, her absentee boyfriend, Adam, and resident bad boy Jared James. The book started out with a lot of promise but ultimately fizzled. Right from the beginning there were some serious disconnects. We're told that Charlotte's parents don't believe in the paranormal, that they drive around in a van labeled "Doubt" and yet they have ghost detecting equipment, speak the ghost hunter lingo and get really, really excited about paranormal indicators like EVP, light orbs and energy spikes. For supposed skeptics they sure as heck act like they believe in ghosts, despite their weak arguments to the contrary. Next we're told that Charlotte's sister, Abby, is chum - a ghost magnet used frequently during documentary shoots. While I laughed at the term and love the concept, Abby was way to jumpy for someone who's occupied that position most of her life. The same goes for Charlotte. Supposedly they grew up being dragged through haunted houses, dungeons, creepy dark places, and yet Abby freaks out because she gets a deep sense of sadness from a location shoot? It doesn't track. Another pet peeve for me was Charlotte's sudden and intense friendship with Avery. Charlotte moves to town and magically makes friends with the head cheerleader? Because NONE of Avery's otherwise apparently attentive friends are around in the weeks before school starts? It just doesn't fit. More-over, not one of those existing friends has a problem taking Charlotte into their tight-knit clique when school starts. And the mystery surrounding Avery's boyfriend and what really happened to him? Utterly ridiculous. [spoiler]For goodness sake, Jared isn't willing to admit he crashed his car because he swerved to avoid Avery's dog? Really? He's just going to be vilified and not say a word? And because he swerved to avoid hitting the dog, Jared somehow believes he murdered his best friend in the accident? He believes it so much he TELLS Avery he murdered Adam. But of course he won't tell Avery he crashed because of her dog - that would be too traumatic for everyone. I felt like there was a lot of lead up to the reveal of what happened to Adam and why and then to have it be something so ridiculously simple felt very disappointing.[/spoiler]The actual writing wasn't bad, nice descriptions, excellent scene-setting and a good pace throughout the novel. The characters were distinctive and dialogue was well done. The plot holes and stumbles, however, were too much of a distraction and the decent writing style couldn't rescue the overall story. I think that Mara Purnhagen shows a lot of promise as a writer and I'll be interested to see what she writes in the future. This particular book just wasn't to my taste.
What do You think about Past Midnight (2010)?
Kinda creepy... But not that bad that you would start doubting everyhting around you is a ghost. :)
—GavinKnauer
Was pretty good, could have been better
—bex
It's a bit creepy dont you think??
—Hellokitty2002
