Book Review: Spirit

Returning to the feelings of 'meh' induced by Wicked: Witch and Curse, I begin my review of Spirit by J. P. Hightman.*

Spirit tells the story of teenage ghost hunters and husband and wife duo, Tobias and Tess, on their way to investigate claims of the paranormal in Salem Massachusetts in the Victorian Era.

Things which endeared me to this book:

• Ghost Hunters- this is an immediate selling point for me on almost any book. It's incredibly difficult to go wrong with ghost hunters in your narrative. Possible, but difficult.
• Romance- fine, I'll admit it. I like a little romance. My cold, robot heart is not immune to the warm fuzzies and Tess and Tobias had some morbidly sweet moments.
• Same First Initial- Okay, this is just a weird thing about Maria brought on by my peculiar upbringing. I like it when pairs have the same first name. Matching initials are cute to me. My brother and I are both M's, my parents were R's, my cousins are R's and C's respectively, some of my favorite couples in anime (both cannon and non cannon) share first initials. It's just a thing about me. Ahem. Moving on.
• Salem Witch Trials- While writing about the Salem Witch Trials is NOT an automatic 'Pass Go' story wise, it is a rich source of literary potential. I can think of a lot of dumb books that used the trials as a stepping stool, but I can think of a lot of good books that used them too. In short, it caught my interest.
• Paranormal- Yeah, I'm a sucker, but I've found many an awesome book based solely on my interest in its being paranormal.
  
• Cover- the cover looks cool, doesn't it?

This book is one of the reasons I do NOT adhere to the "If it's good three chapters in, it's going to be a good book" rule or any stupid rule like it. Up until the fourth chapter, I was really involved in this story. Then, something fizzled out of it. The spark seemed to go out of the writing and the characters. The plot seemed to be drawing towards a cliche and I just couldn't take it when it had started out so good.

Even so, it wasn't a bad book. I flipped to the end since the middle was starting to bore me (bad reader, I know. Sue me) and was surprised by where it landed. I have Spirit on my list of books to reread. I'm not sure if it's the book that was really bad, or if I was just reading it at a bad time, or what. Overall, the book left me a little cold and mostly unimpressed. But there were enough elements that to interest me that I really want to give this one another shot. I'm kind of hoping that I was chemically nuts at the time of reading and that I'll appreciate it better if I'm in a saner state of mind. Now we just have to wait for the stars to align for me to get to that saner state. Stay tuned for further developments. Breath holding is optional.

My Rating: a tentative 3 out of 5 mushrooms



Undecidedly yours,
-Maria D.

*This was a library book. I didn't buy it. I didn't receive an ARC. I'm poor and no one likes me enough to send me free stuff. Except for Emma. HAI EMU!