Review Detail

Although I'm a firm believer in the old adage that you can't (or shouldn't) judge a book by its cover, I'll be honest and say the cover is the main reason I picked up this book.  However, in this case, it was a good choice.  I was drawn in by the allusions the author made to classic Gothic literature and current music and poetry (the most obvious being the protagonist's name -- Charlotte Usher) as well as the style of writing that reminded me of 1950s video reels that showed characters doing things while a single narrator provided voice-over commentary. 

These are the things that drew me in, but they lost a little bit of their charm about halfway through the novel's silver trimmed pages.  The story itself was a bit predictable -- the popular boy is deeper than people imagine him to be, the loner girl has more feelings than she wants people to realize, the teen queen's true personality is revealed -- and the reveal of Charlotte's "unfinished" business came too late in the story for my tastes. 

However, with that being said, it was an easy, entertaining read with just enough novelty to redeem the slightly played-out nature of the plot. The fact that there is a website to accompany the story is also a redeeming quality.  I believe this book will appeal to a specific subset of my student population, but not all students will enjoy what's housed within the cover.