Book Review: The Ghost and the Goth

TITLE: The Ghost and the Goth
Book 1 in the Ghost and the Goth series
AUTHOR: Stacey Kade
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: paranormal, drama, romance
PREMISE: Alona hadn't meant to get killed but here she is. Now her only hope is the deadbeat loser goth boy from her school...
MY REVIEW: I didn't expect much from this series. I figured it'd be cute and that would be all there was too it. Now to be clear, it's not phenomenal literature. But it is cute and a heck of a lot of fun. Also for a chick-lit oriented series the writing is not half bad.
The characters are relateable and more importantly are not uber Mary Sues/Gary Stus. They have personalities. One of the reasons I steered clear of this was that I was afraid it was going to turn into one of those popular kids vs goth kids things and naturally popular people would all suck or vice versa which tends to happen in those types of books. But it actually wound up being very balanced and fair to all social groups. It didn't stereotype and pointed out that EVERYONE has issues. Lets face it, that's a rareity in YA nowadays. So there actually was something poigntant going on within all the humor (it was hilarious) and romance (which was actually kind of decent all though it could have been developed better).
In the end I think this is a fun book and I'll definitely be picking up the second and anything else Stacey Kade has to offer (I believe she writes adult novels?). If you're tired of vamps and werewolves and want good old fashioned ghosts, give this one a try.
WHO SHOULD READ: ghost book fans, fans of The Mediator series
MY RATING: Four out of Five ouji boards