Latest Read: The Unquiet

Here are the basics ...
Book: The Unquiet
Author: Jeannine Garsee
Site: http://www.jeanninegarsee.com/
Category: Young Adult

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Rinn Jacobs has secrets: she’s bipolar and she killed her grandmother. After a suicide attempt and her parents' separation, Rinn and her mom move from California to the rural Ohio town where her mother grew up. Back on her medications, Rinn settles into her new home, undaunted by the fact that the previous owner hanged herself in Rinn's bedroom. At school, her classmates believe the school pool is haunted by Annaliese, a girl who drowned there. But when a reckless séance goes awry, and terrible things start happening to her new friends - and not her - Rinn is determined to find out why she can’t be "touched" by Annaliese...or if Annaliese even exists.  (Adapted from goodreads.com) 

[Note: I won a signed copy of this book through a giveaway hosted on Goodreads. So thank you Goodreads and Jeannine Garsee!]

My thoughts…

The good: If the goal of this book was to freak out its readers - then mission accomplished! I ended up reading this book late at night and by the time I finished, I could barely go to the bathroom without looking over my shoulder every two seconds.  I thought the author did a really good job of setting up the environment for her story.  Small town, people who have known each other for years & have a lot of (unspoken) history and a bipolar main character who could be imagining everything.  I liked Rinn as a main character.  She was extremely candid about what it's like to be bipolar and how hard she tries to stay on the straight and narrow (aka remembering to take her pills).  She's definitely struggling to make sense of things (life, her illness and discovering her school is haunted) but I like how she tries to trust her instincts and approaches problems head-on, with a bit of snark.

As she settles into town, she makes friends (who were hard to like) and meets a cute guy (very easy to like). Aside from the ghost story aspect & Rinn's illness, I'd say that the romance with Nate is the other big component of the book.  Their romance kind of threw me at first. Because it was so instant and the author didn't try to draw it out at all.  But it was sort of refreshing because Nate liked her right away and wasn't afraid to say it.  Plus they had this very cute banter going on and spent time getting to know each other.  And hey, at least it wasn't insta-LOVE right?

The bad: I wasn't too crazy about the pacing of the story.  I was immediately sucked in, continued to keep up that same level of interest, somewhere in the middle it started to drag for a while and then it picked up again toward the end.  But when it dragged, I got pretty frustrated.  I think if the reveals had happened earlier, it would've kept the momentum going because I definitely liked how everything tied together in the end.

Do I recommend?:  I don't usually read books about ghosts and I definitely don't expect to actually get scared by them.  So I was surprised that this one got to me.  If you enjoy scary stories, I'd recommend this.

Happy reading!