18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Judge this book by its cover, October 14, 2008
This review is from: ghostgirl (Hardcover)
As sad as it is to admit, the cover of this book is what immediately grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, the cover is better than the book.
Student, Charlotte, feels invisible at her high school and courtesy of a freak accident, literally becomes invisible following her death when she becomes a ghost.
The plot of Ghost Girl is stellar and seems like it should be a great read. Unfortunately, it falls short of expectations.
First, the book is riddled with corny death jokes. They're everywhere and seem to pop up at every other paragraph. Most of these jokes are eye-rolling, groan-inducing, and due to the vast number of them present, become irritating quickly.
Second, and this may be my personal peeve, but the author, or should I say "Charlotte" belittles genuine illnesses. I.E., one student ghost was said to have died from self injury. The moral of this student's story is that she she didn't cut herself well-enough and died from not being half-hearted in her attempts.
Charlotte later picks at her enemy for being anorexic.
Ignoring my personal distastes for the books, one of the primary reasons Ghost Girl is receiving two stars is while the plot is wonderful, the characters are not. They're one dimensional and fit the archetypal role to a tee.
Charlotte is the typical poor "nobody notices me, everybody hates me" girl. She sticks so closely to this role, in fact, that she becomes quite irritating and near impossible to relate to or even like. Charlotte's incessant tendency to judge and demean everyone around her while still having the audacity to pull the "woe is me, nobody understands me" card is off-putting.
While Charlotte is the main character and the entire text is about her, I felt that I didn't know her - nor did I particularly care to.
Petula, Charlotte's enemy, is also a flat character and sticks to the pretentious bully archetype. Her characterization is also over-dramatized and thus difficult to believe. It would have been wonderful if Hurley had offered some explanation for why Petula is the way she is, does Petula grow, what does she offer? Instead, she's flat, boring and extremely predictable - as most of the characters are.
In Ghost Girl, there's almost no mention of parents or family. Hurley's excuse for this? Because teens are too self-centered to have concern for their family. This seemed like a weak excuse and as if this "rule" may have been added as a fleeting afterthought.
It also seemed as if Ghost Girl had no editor. The number of mistakes throughout the book were numerous. For example, during Charlotte's criticism of anorexics, she mentioned "BMI index", which translates to "body mass index index." There are also several times when Hurley described a comment as "sarcastic" when it did not fit the definition of sarcasm. In fact, it seemed like every comment that every character made was "sarcastic," as each bit of conversation would end with "she said with sarcasm." or "she said, sarcastically."
This is without including the vast number of grammatical errors.
Finally, Hurley breaks several of the rules she sets for ghosts. Earlier in the book, it states that ghosts are unable to physically interact with the living or objects in the livings' time, and her body simply goes through objects or people she tries to touch. Later, Charlotte is hugging her crush and receives a "make-under" by a living person. The objects used don't "pass" through her and she's able to touch her crush and the other living person.
Also, Hurley states that Charlotte's real name is Charles early on in the text and she changed her name to Charlotte during her "make-over" attempt that year in high school. However, nobody recognized her as "Charles", students she says she's known for years prior to her name change all automatically know her "new name" is Charlotte and when she dies, the ghosts know of her new name as well, despite that this name-change is relatively new and she never appears to inform anyone of it.
Inconsistencies such as the above are all through the text. One minute Hurley makes a rule for Charlotte or states a fact about Charlotte, ten pages later the rule is broken and the fact, no longer existent.
The actual tone of the book is irregular. It passes through humble and full of awe to corny and conceited. While Charlotte is supposedly invisible and has little self-esteem, she manages to look down her nose at everyone.
To summarize, I loved the plot and was greatly looking forward to reading this book. However, it was such a disappointment that I plan to return it after I locate the receipt.
The characters are predictable and extremely irritating. The death puns, also irritating. And the plot never seemed to thoroughly develop.
If you're looking for an engrossing book that will leave you entranced. Keep looking.
This isn't it.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, August 5, 2008
This review is from: ghostgirl (Hardcover)
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I should die before I awake,
I pray the popular attend my wake."
This is the year for Charlotte Usher. The year that she's finally going to be noticed. She's finally going to have what she's always wanted: to be a popular girl and fit in with the head cheerleader in the school, Petula Kensington. She feels that the first day of school will be the start of her new life. She'll finally have the attention of the most popular guy in school, Damen. Who is, of course, Petula's boyfriend.
In a way she does start a new life. Although it's actually her afterlife. Poor Charlotte chokes on a red gummy bear just before she leaves her first period physics class and dies. Her hopes of starting over fresh and finally being noticed for once are all crushed in an instant. Especially when she finds out that she still has to graduate even though she's dead! There's a whole class of students from her school who have died and are still attending classes there.
Charlotte isn't giving up, though. She's still determined to win over Damen. And with the help of Scarlet Kensington (Petula's younger sister) she's sure she'll be able to do it. Scarlet can actually see Charlotte and Charlotte isn't about to let that fact go to waste. She figures she can hang out in Scarlet's body and get through to Damen that way. But her new dead classmates aren't liking Charlotte's plans too much and are making it incredibly hard for her to get anything done. Plus, the more time Scarlet spends time with Damen (when Charlotte isn't in her body, that is) the more Scarlet is starting to like Damen herself.
Charlotte is determined to be noticed. She thinks that if she can just get noticed and be popular that she'll finally move on. But is popularity really what Charlotte needs? Or is it just finally realizing that you don't have to be the center of attention to matter?
This book was great. I couldn't really guess what would happen throughout the book, which I always like. Poor Charlotte has such a rough time! Especially in the beginning of her afterlife. But she pulls through and even learns a valuable lesson along the way. I loved Scarlet's character. The way she acts towards her sister is hilarious. They are total opposites in every way. I loved all the nicknames the other dead students have, too. And I thought the ending was cute. It might not have been totally realistic, but then again this book wasn't really all that realistic in the first place. So I thought the ending fit pretty perfectly. I highly suggest checking this book out.
Reviewed by: Breanna F.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Looks great, content is eh, October 22, 2009
This review is from: ghostgirl (Hardcover)
I was not a fan of this book. I liked the actual writing and I liked the concept, I think it was just because I didn't like that main character. There are characters who are unpopular because other kids are mean or they are shy, and then there are people who are unpopular because they try to hard and annoy people. Charlotte is in the second group. She is selfish (even when dead) and only interested in a boy. Even at the end, she doesn't really redeem herself...she wants a boy to kiss her. Maybe if she was supposed to be a middle schooler it might be okay, but she is immature and annoying in every way.
There ARE some positives of this book. Parts of the book are funny, the pop culture references are clever, and the writing is fantastic, i just greatly disliked the main character.
The best thing about the book is the design. It is a beautiful book. It is longer than most books to look like a coffin. It has a cutout on the cover that is very appealing. The inside has two-color on every page. It is a great design and Hachette needs to be complimented on it.
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