Carolee Dean is the author of Forget Me Not, Take Me There, and Comfort. She lives with her family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she works with teenagers as a speech pathologist. Find out more at CaroleeDean.com.
Gr 9 Up-Told from alternating perspectives, this novel in verse and screenplay begins with freshman Ally recounting her story about joining the dance team, becoming popular overnight, and then quickly losing it all when a photo of her in bed with Davis, the boyfriend of her school's queen bee, goes viral. Ally has no one to talk to; her "friends" on the dance team shun her; her father is emotionally unavailable; her best friend, Brianna, (Davis's sister) dumps her; and Elijah, the boy who's been in love with her for years, thinks Ally wants nothing to do with a "loser" like him. Not realizing that there's more to her feeling of disconnection than she understands, Ally hides herself in a haunted school hallway; there she meets the Hangman and several other ghosts who attempt to get her to stay with them forever. But Elijah begins trying to make Ally accept that she can face her classmates and begin an emotional and physical recovery. Ally's need for attention and adoration seems all too real, and the way she is undone is all too commonplace in today's schools where bullying and name-calling are made eerily simple through technology. However, too many scenes with the ghosts create a disruption from the otherwise well-written story, and other scenes and elements become a bit hackneyed and or cliched. This timely story has promise in its first half, but ultimately falls flat.-Lauren Newman, Northern Burlington County Regional Middle School, East Columbus, NJ (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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