The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead by Paul Elwork
My rating: 3/5 cats
i seem to have a knack lately for choosing perfectly average books to read…
this is a book i failed to win as a firstreads giveaway (hhmph) but was still interested in. so i guess i’m not displeased that i didn’t win, because i might have felt churlish giving a lukewarm review to something given to me for free, and had to live with the bad feeling that would have left in my soul. as it stands, i only have to feel a little bad. i can live with that.
so this is a historical novel centered around a pair of bored rich twins who convince the neighbor kids, and later, the adults, that the girl of the pair can communicate through the dead, but in reality, she’s just cracking her ankle and pretending it is from the great beyond. sorta loosely based on the fox sisters.
but honestly, all the spirit knocking stuff was really just window-dressing for a perfectly adequate family drama, which was disappointing, after having read better treatments of the subject:
Beyond Black
Affinity
The Haunting of L
The Seance
etc.
this doesn’t really add anything to the historical spiritist novel, but removing that element of the book would leave precious little to the story. does the math on that wash? it’s more a quantity/quality thing i guess. i expected a creepy ghost story. if i couldn’t have that, i would have liked a good con story. what i got was a pretty basic family seeeecrets story with cardboard halloween decorations.
s’okay. but they probably won’t use this book to make a hollywood summer blockbuster. maybe a made-for-teevee…
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