Customer Reviews

Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a mother and former youth librarian, I recommend this book for both adults and teens. It's fun, quirky, and is full of mystery and adventure. The writing is engaging and enthusiastic - you can almost imagine Gilda Joyce bounding into your living room and impressing you with her energy and imagination, not to mention her very stylish clothes! As a librarian, I especially recommend this book for dealing with some very difficult issues - suicide, the death of a parent, divorce and depression - that often perplex young adults. Gilda's enthusiasm for life (and psychic sleuthing!) may help teen readers to put these and other difficult situations into perspective, making them less overwhelming. Above all, Gilda's adventures are great fun and offer young and old readers alike a chance to escape their everyday lives!

Move over, Harry Potter! Jennifer Allison's new teen-age sleuth Gilda Joyce has real-life adventures as Psychic Investigator that rival those of Harry. Courageous, daring, presumptuous, outrageous, undaunted, she enters a locked tower, entices ghosts, outwits unsmpathetic adults, and reforms the mal-adjusted. With wig disguises and ouija board, she flirts with the occult. Though this novel by Jennifer Allison is a "can't put it down" mystery story for teen agers, adults will enjoy it as well (I am 83). Norma W. Goldman, Professor, Wayne State University

Sure I am only 12 but I loved this book. There were some parts that were too scary for me so I had to read on even though my Dad said it was time for bed. I think that the author over-used some bad words. I just skipped over them and tried to forget but I still give this book a 5.

Thirteen-year-old Gilda Joyce has been into detective work since she read "Harriet the Spy," and now that she's learning about psychics, she's decided to combine regular detective work with psychic skills to become a psychic investigator. Unfortunately, she needs a case to work on, and, living in Michigan, detective cases are scarce, and psychic investigation cases are even more so. Hence, Gilda decides to wrangle herself an invitation to stay at her estranged cousin's house in San Francisco over summer vacation. Little does she know, but there is a real ghost haunting their home, and it's up to Gilda to solve the case, and get the ghost's soul to rest, so as not to haunt throughout the huge house anymore. Now, with the help of her newfound cousin, Juliet Splinter - who is actually the same age as Gilda - the two girls plan on solving the case, and laying this ghost down to rest.

I have been interested in paranormal phenomena and psychic investigators for years, so when I found this book lying upon the shelf at Barnes & Noble last week, I knew that I had to have it. Jennifer Allison has done an amazing job with this novel. The characters are fun, and easy to relate to, and the situations in which they partake keep the reader on the edge of their seat from first page to last. Readers may be a little bit put-off by the talk about suicide that is littered throughout the book, but once you overlook it, you are able to truly delve into this novel and realize how fabulous it is. A wonderful read for all.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

Gilda Joyces' only dream is to become a spy/author. Her father has recently died of cancer, and her mother now has to work full time every day to support the family. The problem is that Michigan is definitely not the place for psychic investigators! When she finds out that she has a long lost relative living in San Francisco in a gloomy mansion, she thinks it a perfect opportunity to start her career. She definitely doesn't find what she expects. Get lost in mysterious locked up attics, a suspicious murder, and curious disguises! Read this book and find out more! It will let you in on the amazing life of a psychic investigator.

As the mother of two boys, I'm always looking for books to read to them that are extraordinary and challenging; Gilda Joyce is both! I loved the fact that Gilda handles very serious themes of loss and independence in a real yet fun way. Gilda is a master of coping with all that life throws her way and triumphing with humor and aplomb. Also, unlike some children's books about the supernatural, like the Harry Potter books, Gilda is literary, so I wasn't bored to death reading it out loud. Not only does it owe something to Harriet the Spy, but Jane Eyre as well. This is a great read for smart kids; the author writes as if she trusts her audience's intelligence. I've heard there's a new Gilda Joyce book coming out this spring. It's on my reading list already.

Gilda Joyce is a terrific read. As a mother of a 15 year old, I found it so refreshing to read such a wonderful story, one that not only is fun but provokes one to think about challenges that we all face and that clarity about oneself can come from probing for the answers to unanswered questions in very innovative ways! This author is outstanding and I am hoping she is on to writing her next book. This book is great for adults and middle school children. My 15 year old has read this and is boasting to her friends about it! Now that is a real coup!

Gilda Joyce is an opinionated thirteen-year-old writer and psychic investigator who likes embellishing the truth. She's trying to get better, though, and has made herself the promise that if she tells any lies she'll do the best she can to make them come true. Therefore, when it slips out that she's going to spend her summer in San Francisco with relatives, she considers it the perfect opportunity to go someplace -- and it might even be a psychic impulse!

Of course, there's always the minor problem of having no invitation from these distant relatives, and also never having spoken to them. But if you think this is a setback, you have not yet met Gilda Joyce. She sends a melodramatic, pity-inducing, completely untrue letter that will have you in stitches, a letter that mentions her "special" brother who (according to her) has a problem with drinking household cleaners and an overworked mother who toils away at her job as a nurse and comes home just in time to relieve her exceptionally gifted daughter (that being Gilda, naturally.)

Fortunately for Gilda, this letter does not exactly reach Mr. Splinter, the relative in San Francisco. Instead it reaches his secretary, who decides that Gilda is just the sort of companion Mr. Splinter's daughter Juliet needs, and invites her to come stay.

So begins the first story of Gilda Joyce, a story involving a tall tower and a suicide victim's ghost, and a mystery that Gilda feels DEFINITELY needs her help as a psychic.

This book is absolutely hilarious, and Gilda is one of the best main characters I have ever read. She's funny and smart, and despite her high vocabulary she has absolutely no idea of the meanings of words like "tact" and "boundaries". Always ready to ask prying questions, always willing to do things like dress up and enter Mr. Splinter's office asking for help from the Mafia, she is one character that is definitely worth reading about for many books to come.

Rating: Masterpiece

I thoroughly enjoyed Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator! The story was refreshingly unique. I loved Gilda's quirky personality. She was very independent, kind hearted, insatiably curious, and savvy to ghostly shenanigans. Her style was outrageous.
The plot kept you turning the pages to see what Gilda would discover next. Was the ghost real or only imagined? I would recommend this book to anyone is is tired of reading the same old stuff. Try this sometimes creepy, always amusing story of a charming girl with a very unusual hobby!

I don't really like reading mystery books but I really enjoyed reading this book. I am not a big reader. Not very many books capture my attention so much that I don't want to put it down. This book, Gilda Joyce Physic Investigator, really captured my attention and when I started reading it, I didn't want to put it down.

Elana Handelman