Crewe, Megan: Give Up the Ghost
Give Up the Ghost (2009)
Written by: Megan Crewe
Genre: YA/Paranormal
Pages: 244 (Hardcover)
This is ridiculously late, and for that, I apologize. :)
If you read the book bag where this book was featured, you know I picked it up because I enjoyed Megan Crewe's guest-blogger stint over at Tor.com. I cited it as an example of how being smart, intelligent, and not an ass can bring people over to your work, even though they may not have been interested otherwise. I know I wasn't. Sure, the cover had caught my eye, but it turned me away too for reasons I'll explain at the end of the post, and the premise itself never really grabbed me. So for Crewe's features on Tor.com to win me over, that's saying something (for those of you wondering what she wrote about, it mainly focused on how our psychology effects the way we read and why we like what we do). So to "reward" the author for being such a smart, interesting blogger, I picked up her book. And read it in, like, a single day.
The premise: from BN.com: Cass McKenna much prefers ghosts over “breathers.” Ghosts are uncomplicated and dependable, and they know the dirt on everybody…and Cass loves dirt. She’s on a mission to expose the dirty secrets of the poseurs in her school.
But when the vice president of the student council discovers her secret, Cass’s whole scheme hangs in the balance. Tim wants her to help him contact his recently deceased mother, and Cass reluctantly agrees.
As Cass becomes increasingly entwined in Tim’s life, she’s surprised to realize he’s not so bad-and he needs help more desperately than anyone else suspects. Maybe it’s time to give the living another chance . . .
Review style: expect spoilers, simply because it's a short book and the things I want to talk about are directly related to the more spoilerific aspects of the book. If you want to remain clean, just skip to the "My Rating" section of the review.
There's one odd, but good, but odd, but good, but . . .
Megan Crewe, in one of her Tor.com posts, commented on the lack of friendship between boys and girls in YA, and how friendship is just as important, and how romance isn't wholly necessary. I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. And in that post, she mentioned she made a point of keeping romance out of Give Up the Ghost, which I also thought was cool. It was one of those things I was glad I knew before going into the book.
But to be honest? Reading the book? Felt like it was going into a romantic direction. If I hadn't already KNOWN that the relationship between Cass and Tim's goal was friendship? I think I would've been annoyed that it wasn't a romance (because that's me). Why? Because it just felt like that was the direction that relationship was going on. Now, I'm not complaining: first of all, I think it's cool to have a heroine and a hero who are friends, because it gives the heroine something else to do besides be in a love story. There's a difference between wanting to save someone's skin because you're in the thrall of love, and it's another to save a person because you're that person's friend, you want what's best for them, etc. Love can make someone stupid. Friendship could too, I guess, but not as much as love, which makes me think that friendship is harder. At any rate, I'm glad Crewe went in the friendship direction, even though I felt like it strayed a little too close to a romance feel than it should have. Others who've read this book, let's discuss: am I just prone to see romance in any close relationship, or does this really feel like it should've gone in that direction?
There's really a lot to like in this book. Like the whole sense that it's gonna be a romance, but it isn't, there were often times when I felt SURE I knew what would happen next, only to have Crewe twist the story on its head. Stuff like thinking that her former best friend, Danielle, would think that Cass's implication that her boyfriend wasn't faithful meant that CASS was the one he was unfaithful with. Then the party scene made me think that Tim would humiliate Cass in front of everyone now that he had what he wanted. Constantly, I had the sick feeling I knew what would happen next, only to be proven wrong. That was rather refreshing.
I also appreciated the brutal honesty of this book. Cass's past isn't rosie-sweet due to a fight that wasn't her fault, but time has made her into one of those people she despises, and that's something she has to come to terms with at the end of the book. I like how Tim isn't capable of dealing with his mother's death, how he keeps asking for more and more until he decides life isn't worth it, and Cass has to do everything she can to save him and convince him that life really isn't so bad.
And how Cass intereacts with ghosts is really interesting. It's easy to see how she's become a social outcast, and I really liked (even though I knew it would bring more trouble than not) how she utilized ghosts to get the scoop on her classmates. But by the end, when I realized the obvious--that Cass's ability means she's able to help ghosts pass from this world to the next--I understood that rather than using the ghosts for her own means, Cass should be trying to help them figure out what's keeping them in this world so they can move on. After all, look at the title of the book. It really only applies to Tim's mom and Tim himself, but once we learn that a ghost can move on, I started wondering how Cass was going to help Paige or Norris or Bitzy? Don't they deserve a chance to settle their ties to this world? Cass may not quite be old enough or mature enough to recognize this as a necessity, but adult readers should. And when the question of a sequel comes up, as Crewe blogged about at Tor.com, I think this is what they're talking about (or they could be talking about wanting to see a romance develop between Cass and Tim, but that's not necessary): helping ghosts move on seems to me to be an integral part of this concept, and it's not fully explored. If Crewe were to ever write a sequel (as of now, I'm pretty sure she doesn't plan to), I'd like to see her focus on Cass helping the ghosts instead of the ghosts helping her. How to turn that into a story, I'm not sure, but hey, that's why SHE's the writer!
Cass's parental situation was also handled pretty well. Sure, we had somewhat absent parents, but the mother was dealt with DIRECTLY, and we as readers understood the mother's motivations for being away from home so much, and even if we didn't, Cass lays it out for us and her mother in an excellent fight that sounds like something ***I*** would've gotten into when I was that age. The father, less so, but I think he's trying to keep the peace. Not quite as well developed as the mom's situation, but I rather liked him. He felt real to me, and it was nice to have a change from the typical TOTALLY ABSENT UNCARING PARENTS you usually see in YA, even though I find said trope to be at times realistic.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: which isn't bad for a hardcover. Crewe has a tendency to twist expectations a bit, and every time I thought something major was resolved in the book, Crewe turned that resolution n its head and let it lead into more interesting territory. It's a good story for anyone who's ever felt out of place, especially in high school, because Cass's story is about not just finding her place (and trust me when I say it's NOT about finding her place in the normative social cliques), but about Cass finding a way to interact with the real world again, instead of just the world of ghosts. I personally would like to see Cass's story continue, because while she grows and changes in this book, I feel like it's time for her to make a change in her world, and her ability to interact with ghosts is just the way to do it. This is an incredibly fast, fast read. I finished it in less than a day, and I'll be very happy to pick up Crewe's next offering, whatever it might be. As a writer, Crewe shows a lot of promise, so it'll be exciting to see what she does next.
Cover Commentary: here's the thing: it's a great cover. The coloring is awesome, and it's a cool and appropriate image to have a ghost whispering in Cass's ear (the back cover has a ghost boy leaning against the lockers, also appropriate). However, I just don't like it. It's too bright, colorful, cheerful, and PRETTY, and that just doesn't fit the book at all. Cass is SMILING on the cover, for goodness's sakes, and unless that's a devious smile because she's gotten some good dirt on someone, it just doesn't fit. That said, this is most obviously my opinion, and I feel the cover works well, but it just doesn't speak to me personally. I do like the cover model they picked for Cass, though I tend to prefer those cropped faces/heads that so many people complain about, as it allows me to imagine the protagonist as I'd like. :) Fortunately, the model fit the description of Cass quite nicely.
Next up: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood