Yara is beginning to understand just how much her life will change now that her Waker abilities have emerged. She has come to terms with the fact that seeing ghosts is part of her life, but she isn’t ready to let being a Waker dictate her choices. All she wants is a ghost-free senior year with her boyfriend, Brent, and her best friend, Cherie. But Yara soon discovers that there are more dark secrets in her school’s history than just the curse she broke. While an angry ghost makes Yara question everything she thought she knew about spirits, she and Brent learn that there are long reaching consequences to last year’s adventures. As new enemies emerge and old ghosts resurface, Yara finds herself in the center of another deadly mystery, and this time she has to contend with the living as well as the dead.
NOTE: This is the second book in a series and there will be spoilers for book one. Read the review for book one here.
I liked this book, although I think I like the themes in the first book a little better. This one has a lot more of what I expect from a ghosty YA book, but it did add a little more to it.
Yara is back at school after spending a summer in Brazil learning more about her Waker abilities. After she attends a school event full of alumni, she ends up coming home with a seriously pissed off ghost. The ghost thinks that Yara stole something from her. To make the situation worse, a secret society called the Clutch is back on the school grounds and they want Yara and Brent to join them, but Yara doesn't trust them. Except Brett's been making a lot of trips to the hospital lately and the Clutch is promising that they know how to make him better.
A lot more is learned about Wakers in this book. We are introduced more fully to the Clutch and how dangerous they are. It is hinted that there might be more Wakers in America and we get to see a little more of Yara's grandmother. Certainly, a lot happens in this book and while I still think the last book had more unique ideas, it does do a great job of depicting ghosts and adding a little bit of something new.
It should not be a surprise that Yara has PTSD after the events of the last book (although the book doesn't actually say PTSD). I liked the fact that the book showed that she is still dealing with the horrors she encountered from book one because, in reality, we don't just get over near-death (or actual death) experiences. It did bother me that Yara thought that her fear of water and drowning was something she needed to get over. It's not a very good example because plenty of people struggle with PTSD from these kinds of experiences and we really need more books that discuss it more outright and say that it's understandable to have these anxieties. I do understand why she felt this way because she had a terrible support system. Her friends and her boyfriend legit ask her to go swimming and don't notice how scared she is of the water. Honestly, I didn't like Brent very much because he was so oblivious to Yara's fears (in the first book, before Yara drowned and before Brent was possessed, Brent also forced Yara into the water even though she was scared then. So, yeah, he's not a great boyfriend). When the ghost keeps attacking Yara, trying to kill her, Yara's grandmother tells her that she needs to help the ghost and stay at school. [highlight to view spoiler] Yeah, the ghost turned out to be a good person who was severely confused, but [end of spoiler] I didn't understand why, after they almost lost her last year, everyone was so chill about her being put at more risk!
IN CONCLUSION
Despite that, the book did keep my interest. I wanted to make sure that Yara would make it out okay I wanted to find out what was wrong with Brent and I wanted to see how the mystery throughout the whole book would get solved. I do think the book ended in an interesting and very climatic way. I will admit, though, that I think I'm done with this series. I have a lot of other books to read and since the only way for me to read the next book is to buy the ebook, I think I'm okay with ending the series here.
I hereby give this book
3 Stars
Meaning: I liked it.
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