Book Review: Hereafter

TITLE: Hereafter
Book 1 in the new Hereafter series
AUTHOR: Tara Hudson
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: paranormal romance
PREMISE: A ghost saves the life of a boy and finds herself caught in the middle of a war.
MY REVIEW: Hereafter is not a horrible book. There are some good things in it. I found the actual plot part surrounding the mechanics of ghosts and the war quite interesting and unique. Unfortunately the author apparently didn't think this was important and instead focused on the cliche poorly done insta romance.
Ugh, I'm so tired of this trend. You have this really interesting world, why on earth are you focusing on the poor part of your story? If authors would actually develop their romances then okay, I wouldn't mind it so much. But no, this one was just as cliche as ever. It did not help that I had no real feelings towards the main character or her leading man anyway. I personally found Eli far more interesting but he was firmly kept in one-dimensional villain land.
I'm sort of hoping the plot becomes more of the focus in the next book now that all of the sappy I love yous have gotten out of the way in the first one. So I'm not totally shrugging off this series. It's okay. It just needs a lot of work. Particularly in the character developement and plot part. Here's to hoping the second one is better.
WHO SHOULD READ: Twilight fans, ghost book fans
MY RATING: Three out of Five wild raves