If you’re named October and writing a horror novel while sitting in a graveyard… is it really that surprising when you end up hanging out with a bunch of ghosts?
by Evan Munday
ECW Press
ISBN: 978 1 550 22971 4
October Schwartz and her dad are new in town. She’s also a smidge gothy and a year younger than anyone at her new school – the same school her dad works at. And he suffers from depression. It’s all a recipe for being a total outcast, and she is, of course, targeted on her first day by the nasty Ashlie. She finds herself a couple of fellow misfits, though, and tries to settle in. She even finds a teacher she likes – only to have him killed not long into the year.
She can’t quite accept that it’s an accident, and reacts to suspicious teachers in ways that make them think she is going off the rails – and she can’t really assure them that she’s not, given that she has, it seems, accidentally woken up five young ghosts and have enlisted their help in solving what she is certain is in fact a mystery. Snooping is, after all, way easy for beings that can melt through walls…
In the end, an uneasy sort-of-truce, an answer about her teacher’s death, and the end of the ghosts’ time on earth (for now) wraps everything up, but the mysteries of the ghost kids’ deaths remain, so the book closes on a note that sets us up nicely for some future sneakery and sleuthing. What readers will look forward to most, though? Is the voice here. It’s cheeky and funny in a dry manner, right down to the appendices that sum up the characters and break down some “passing references” that might not be picked up by all teens who might be reading this. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read, and a teen who feels a bit of a misfit or who enjoys a little paranormal in their reading could have a good time with this one.
Also available as an ebook.