The Ghost And The Goth by Stacey Kade

Amazon Description: "After a close encounter with the front end of a school bus, Alona Dare goes from Homecoming Queen to Queen of the Dead. Now she’s stuck as a spirit in the land of the living with no sign of the big, bright light to take her away. To make matters worse, the only person who might be able to help her is Will Killian, a total loser outcast. He alone can see and hear (turns out he’s been “blessed” with the ability to communicate with the dead), but he wants nothing to do with the former mean girl of Groundsboro High.

Alona has never needed anyone for anything, and now she’s supposed to expose her deepest, darkest secrets to this pseudo-goth boy? Right. She’s not telling anyone what really happened the day she died, not even to save her eternal soul. And Will’s not filling out any volunteer forms to help her cross to the other side. He only has a few more weeks until his graduation, when he can strike out on his own and find a place with less spiritual interference. But he has to survive and stay out of the psych ward until then. Can they get over their mutual distrust—and the weird attraction between them—to work together before Alona vanishes for good and Will is locked up for seeing things that don’t exist?"

My Review: This book was just okay, in my mind. It was partially amusing to read, but quite honestly, Alona's Queen Bee-act got old REALLY fast and Will was kind of boring, in my mind. There wasn't nearly as much humor as I had expected, and there were a LOT more technicalities (about the "rules" of the dead, and so on) than I had foreseen. The plot WAS semi-interesting, I guess, in where I wanted to find out what Will's deal was and what would happen to Alona in the end and---yes---I wanted to know HOW Alona and Will could ever be together (seeing as how one of them was DEAD...). And speaking of Will and Alona's relationship---I found it forced and cheesy. A lot of people loved this book, but call me heartless---I really didn't. It was okay enough to pass the time, but it's not something I would ever read again.

Cover: The cover IS nice, I've got to admit. It kind of shows the humor of the situation (not that there was much humor in the book, in my opinion...).

Overall Grade: C-