(I don't know that sentence made much more sense in my head.) Middle school librarians who roll the e-book way: this would be awesome for your schools, if your schools had people like me in them, when I was 13 years old. Minus Mr Half-Star for the excessive use of brand names (ymmv, but they bring me out in hives) and a little pacing bobble in the middle when Abby refused to get off the couch and use the brain God gave her. She's shy and self-doubting and, dare I say it, sweet.

A twisty little plot with well-drawn supporting characters, mellifluous writing style and Abby's one of a handful of YA heroines I don't want to hit with a frying pan. Oh, and also she can see Bend, Oregon's first ever serial killer when she has her dark!icy!water! visions. It's a calm little soft-rock mystery, despite the underpinnings of paranormality.Ībby has visions of dark, icy water and dead people sometimes, because she fell in some dark, icy water and died for a bit, then came back to keep an eye on her sister Kate (who has crap taste in men) and her best friend Jesse (who can't stop snowboarding).

It's the perfect step up from when you feel a little older than John Bellairs and a little too young for Christopher Pike, who is straight-up crazy. Y'all, I feel like I've been waiting for this book to come along for a long old time. It's crime! It's paranormal! It's YA! It's mean girls in high school and family dating woes! Where's the little half-star button? I need a half-star button so this thing gets bumped up to 4.5. However, I did read this quickly and I was invested in the story. Her dumb brain kept thinking it was someone else. I’d rather read a 600+ page book that has all its parts together. This is probably the most frustrating thing ever. And I don’t like novelas that feel like pieces of a book. Her memory was affected and would come back in shattered pieces. She couldn’t or wouldn’t remember anything. Also extremely frustrating was her unreliable narration. Is it all serial killers or just this one? Will she become a private investigator? Can she talk to ghost? She is an “in-betweener,” who coined that name? If it has name there are more like her? Right? Soooooooooo many questions. I still don’t understand her connection to the serial killer. A once star, almost Olympic, soccer player can’t even run without falling. She also has very bad mental retention and physical coordination. She can’t see color but can see light around people that show different emotions.

She was pronounced dead for 44 minutes then miraculously came back. Going back to school was actually harder than dying.

Forty four jools sinclair