Almost Dead by Kaz Delaney

“…Well, you can’t have it both ways. You wanted a father, so you’ve got one.”

Almost Dead by Kaz Delaney follows the story of a Gold Coast elite high school girl, Macey Pentecost.  She is being visited by ghosts who need help to ‘move on’.  Although she doesn’t understand anything of the supernatural, she thinks she has it under control. That is, until she is visited by the ghost of ‘Nick’, who stubbornly refuses to admit he is dead.  He tries to warn Macey of danger, but even he doesn’t know what the danger is.  It all becomes more complicated as her father comes home with a surprise, Macey gets threats messages from a stalker and she starts developing feelings for Nick’s cousin.

Yesterday, my laptop stopped working and I took it as a ‘sign’ that I shouldn’t be doing homework :P I must say I am happy that my computer is crazy because I then found Almost Dead. The same day I finished it. It’s light, it’s cute and it’s romantic. Definitely different to the recent books I had been reading, and I was very glad to just relax for a bit. While it is very easy to read, it still has a very interesting plot. I was just a bit disappointed when I found out who the stalker was. Maybe it was just me, but I didn’t think we had enough mentions of the stalker. I had to quickly read back to remind myself who this person was. At least it was a surprise.

This book is very similar to Meg Cabot’s Mediator Series- especially the beginning, with the ghost-seeing teenage girl and the introduction of a cute ghost.  I don’t think I could even compare this to a Meg Cabot novel, since I really love her series. However, I still think that Delaney added a few twists into the plot, and an extra depth with the idea of stalkers. I also think she was effective in getting me to question my morals. I found it hard to accept Macey’s father and his secret but at the same time, as Macey developed she began to forgive and I thought I should too. What I most liked was the depth in all the character, the book could have easily slipped into stereotypes, but it never did.

I definitely enjoyed this book. It is a great Youth fiction. I am also looking forward to reading Delaney’s other book, Dead, Actually.