Book Review: Between

TITLE: Between
AUTHOR: Jessica Warman
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: paranormal, mystery, drama
PREMISE: A ghost tries to figure out what happened to her while spying on her family in the afterlife.
MY REVIEW: Another one I honestly have nothing much to say about. It was vaguely reminiscent of Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver but didn't have near the powerful message that book did. I do think Warman is a promising author. She's got good dialogue, does keep suspense going, and manages to flesh out her characters and have a plot.
But I think this novel suffered from underediting. There were several scenes in here that weren't necessary. I didn't particularly care for any of the characters except for Alex and he didn't get nearly enough page time. I'm also not sure what the author was trying to do. Was it about bullying? I mean the girl learns this after she dies and it never gets to her friends who were doing the actual bullying so that's kind of a lost message there. The main character didn't really forgive her sister (which I can totally understand). It just sort of felt like one of those "what's the point of this?" novels and I hate that. I know not every book has to have a big message. But it does kind of help matters if your book says SOMETHING. This one just sent a lot of mixed messages.
So while it was a decently written book...it bored me. The murderer became obvious by the middle of the book and it just wasn't that interesting. A decent enough book but it just didn't do anything for me. I do think other people may find it more enjoyable though. I think it was just one of those things were I wasn't in the mood for it. It probably didn't help that I'm reading Clash of Kings in between these books.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Before I Fall, mystery fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five yachts