The Ghost and The Goth - Stacey Kade

The Ghost and the Goth is the debut novel by Stacey Kade. It was published on 29th June 2010 by Hyperion Books and is 288 pages long.

Plot
Alona Dare had everything she could ever wish for. Senior in high school, cheerleader, hot boyfriend and was voted homecoming Queen three years in a row. Her perfect life ended on the day she skipped gym class and walked in front of a bus! Now Alona is stuck in a half-life, watching over her friends and how they deal without her, but has no idea why she is still around or how to move on.

Will Killian is the only person that knows Alona has stuck around and she isn’t very pleased about the fact. Will is a social outcast at school, always listening to music with his hood up, shutting out everyone and everything. He’s the only person who can tell Alona why she hasn’t moved on but he really wants nothing to do with her after how she treat people while she was alive. If having Alona stalk him wasn’t enough, there are many more ghosts hanging around the school with unfinished business and they are very persistent once they realise what Will can do.

What I thought
Big thanks to Dwayne from Girls Without A Bookshelf for loaning me this book as I had been wanting to read it for a while now!

I really enjoyed the fact that this was told from the point of view of both Alona and Will. Sometimes multiple POV’s can be confusing at times but Stacey Kade gave each character their own distinct voice which was easy to follow. The fact that both characters were so different made me like each of them equally but for many different reasons. Alona was sassy and sarcastic but had many moments of clarity and wisdom from being able to see things from the outside. Although Will had obviously come to terms with his gift, he wasn’t prepared to do anything with it and just wanted to coast smoothly though life and ignore everything that was going on around him.

Both characters develop a lot in quite a short space of time due to their interactions with the other. The way that Alona and Will change happens at a lovely and realistic pace. Nothing between them ever feels wrong or out of place and their reactions to each other were perfect considering that they were complete opposites when Alona was alive. I would have put the book down immediately if they had become so nice to each other instantly because I wouldn’t have believed it at all.

There is some romance but not loads which was a good thing in my eyes. Quite a lot of YA books that I read mostly concentrate on the romance aspect of the story so this was a nice change. This romance wasn’t the case of ‘I love you’ in a matter of days and that was one of the biggest reasons why I liked this aspect so much. I will be looking forward to seeing how things develop in further books though as Alona and Will could have a lot to deal with.

While most of the story is quite light-hearted due to the banter between Alona and Will, there are some darker moments which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would have liked to have seen these parts expanded upon a bit more or had them happen more often but maybe that will happen in the second book in the series. There were quite a few times where I didn’t really know where the story was heading because of the twists that came coming. I like to be kept guessing with books and Stacey Kade definitely achieved this. The ending was wrapped up really well without many loose ends. Although The Ghost and The Goth is going to be a part of a series, I loved the fact that it worked so well as a stand alone. I didn’t feel like I was desperate to know more but I also knew that the story could go a lot further in many ways.

The Ghost and The Goth was a lovely story with many surprising aspects. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so funny and I definitely wasn’t expecting the supernatural plot twists to give it a darker feel at times. Stacey Kade managed to mix the two really well to make this a very enjoyable read for me. I cant wait for the sequel to find out what is going to happen next!