brilliant premise, not executed quite as well
Lily wakes one morning on the side of the road. She becomes aware that she has been the victim of a hit and run accident and only when the police arrive and take no notice of her she turns around and sees her broken body at the side of the road make her realise that she hasn’t survived.
In the ‘limbo’ between the dead and the living Lily isn’t sure why she’s still around. She can be around her family, her boyfriend and friends. Is she here for a purpose? Is it to find her killer?
The start of this book was absolutely brilliant. The premise, the way that it immediately got into the plot with no real filler beforehand.
The issue I had is that it didn’t really tackle with death in a realistic way for YA readers. The start of the book very much did, and Shrimpton writes eloquently about how grief affects different people in different ways. When Lily took over her brother’s body it went way off base for me. However I appreciate that I’m not the target audience and I was looking for a little more realism.
I have to be honest I struggled with the fact that Lily’s murderer got off scot free. The notion of forgiveness is of course lovely, however there is no getting away from the fact that some crimes really do need to be punished. I also didn’t believe the fact that her family just accepted her forgiveness and chose to follow it.
The secondary characters that meant so much to Lily weren’t really fleshed out enough for me. In order to connect with characters, you have to be given something to go on. Whether that be a favourable or non favourable aspect of them. But I don’t feel that Shrimpton did this.
Overall a 3 star read for me.
I would like to thank Readers First for a copy of this book in exchange for a review.
In the ‘limbo’ between the dead and the living Lily isn’t sure why she’s still around. She can be around her family, her boyfriend and friends. Is she here for a purpose? Is it to find her killer?
The start of this book was absolutely brilliant. The premise, the way that it immediately got into the plot with no real filler beforehand.
The issue I had is that it didn’t really tackle with death in a realistic way for YA readers. The start of the book very much did, and Shrimpton writes eloquently about how grief affects different people in different ways. When Lily took over her brother’s body it went way off base for me. However I appreciate that I’m not the target audience and I was looking for a little more realism.
I have to be honest I struggled with the fact that Lily’s murderer got off scot free. The notion of forgiveness is of course lovely, however there is no getting away from the fact that some crimes really do need to be punished. I also didn’t believe the fact that her family just accepted her forgiveness and chose to follow it.
The secondary characters that meant so much to Lily weren’t really fleshed out enough for me. In order to connect with characters, you have to be given something to go on. Whether that be a favourable or non favourable aspect of them. But I don’t feel that Shrimpton did this.
Overall a 3 star read for me.
I would like to thank Readers First for a copy of this book in exchange for a review.