Life After Theft

So, the whole only one person can see the ghost book has been done, but I enjoyed the plot then and I enjoyed it this go round as well. This one does have the unique twist that the ghost is a rich girl. Who stole. A lot. And Jeff, our main character, the only one around who can see her, is guilted into helping her and makes a new, if at times annoying, but funny ghostly friend, Kimberlee.
I will be honest, I almost didn't read this one because I thought it would be soo much drama and I guess when I first got it, I just dismissed without fully reading the synopsis, but once I got a chapter in, I was hooked.
I liked being in Jeff's head. There just aren't as many male POV although they are becoming more popular as a dual narrative, but here it is all boy, all the time. I liked the way that he interacted with her, and that he was skeptical. At first he thought it was all some big joke. But I really appreciated his line of thought, and while he had his flaws, that he was just a good person, and had a desire to do the right thing.
I felt for Kimberlee and despised her, sometimes all at once. I understand that it was a compulsion, her stealing, and that she desperately wants to cross over. But just some of her attitudes turn me off. I know that she is covering up pain, but still. But she made such amazing character development and growth, and that left me smiling when the book was over. The inherent goodness of Jeff really changed her and how she looked at (after)life. And I like that it wasn't a romantic thing with them.
Khail and Sera are great secondary characters. I really enjoyed the in some instances unexpected roles they play in the book.
I liked how everything tied up and the ending was *just* open enough to picture them going on with their lives in a good way.

Bottom Line: Funny, cute and surprising character development.

The book was definitely a plus for having a very functional male POV *don't let the cover fool you*. I'm not a boy, and I still have no idea how they think, but I felt Jeff was very boy-esque. So that definitely made me happy. There are not enough boy POV's in YA as of yet. *Though they could have made the book cover appeal to boys, just saying.*

I decided to go into the reading with little or no expectations. I got this book sort of accidentally. I was choosing a WoW pick, saw the book, went to check it out more on Edelweiss, and saw that I could download it. I have since learned it was because I had gotten auto-approval for HarperTeen *YAY* but at the time I was like "well that's cool" and continued on with my day. So I had a copy, and my rule is if I download it, I read and review. So that's just what happened. And the book was actually quite good.

Jeff is the new kid at school. With his family's new-found money, Jeff and his family moved to California so that his mom would have a shot at an acting career *she's apparently good* which left Jeff as the nerdy kid... who just so happens to see ghosts. Well ghost *singular* a.k.a. Kimberlee, a pain-in-the-butt ghost that is dead set on making sure that Jeff helps her make peace and "moves on" by returning the stuff she stole in life. And by stuff, I mean like a cave full of boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. Jeff had no way of knowing that it was trying to help the former-kleptomaniac. So he agrees to help. During the story, he also falls for Sera, a popular "hot" girl who is a lot more than she appears. The problem is Sera and Kimberlee have a lot of animosity between them. Well technically it would be more of a past tense kind of thing, but the anger is still there on both sides.

First off, I have to sat that I adore this cover and the whole story is one that I adored as well. I the description it tells that this is a re-telling of Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel and since I haven’t read anything about it, I went into this just thinking that it was a ghost story. And it’s told from Jeff’s POV, which by the way, was great…
It centers around Jeff, who is the new kid at school, who happens to be the only one who can see Kimberlee. Jeff isn’t a bad kid at all, he seem to be down to earth and doesn’t really fit into the whole snobby rich kid stereotype, even though that is exactly where he ends up going to school with a whole school filled with kids just like that. I really liked him, he was sarcastic and funny. But the story really doesn’t revolve around him, it is mostly about Kimberlee. The ultimate mean girl kleptomaniac, that died a year ago and has been hanging around in the halls of the school. She has very few, if any redeeming qualities. I will give her some credit, she did do some thing that me didn’t make me despise her, so I guess you can say she did end up making me like her, just a little.
With a ghost that had some unfinished business made the pace was fast and fun. The characters were realistic with flaws and secrets that they held closely. Of course there is a budding romance, but I just never really felt the connection between Jeff and Sera. She had many secrets, that I believe made her hard to know anything about. One thing that I think really stood out for me is this isn’t a ghost reformed because she found some new found nice personality, she remained the same till the end. It was just who she was and she certainly was one complex girl. There were a few twists thrown in, some you could see coming but it didn’t bother me at all, because everything did come together at the end.
There is some funniness, new loves and closure. Life After Theft is a fun book, that I really did enjoy. If you’re looking for a light and quirky book, this is just that book.