Book: Body & Soul (Ghost and the Goth #3) by Stacey Kade
Published May 1, 2012 by Hyperion
Summary: There are spoilers for the second book in this summary. Alona is trapped in the body of Will's friend Lily, whose soul has passed on, but body remains in a coma.
Characters: Even though this was my least favorite of the three Ghost and the Goth novels, I still adored Will. Seriously, Will. Where are you? Let's go out. (FYI... this is YA, but he TOTALLY GRADUATED so FAIR GAME. Wow... I'm turning into Ashelynn with all the caps.) So, Will? Still awesome. I would have liked to see him resolve things with his mom a little better, but that is my only complaint.
As for Alona, I felt like being in a real body really tested her character growth from the previous two novels. Again, my biggest complain is that her family issues were dealt with in a very shallow way. There was so much that could have been explored as Alona interacted with Lily's family and her old family was barely mentioned. She had some serious issues with both her mom and her dad and I felt like they really needed to be resolved if this was the final book.
Plot/Pacing: My biggest problem with this book is that the plot revolves around Will and Alona trying to remove Alona's ghost from Lily's body while keeping her alive. However, from the very first book, Will has always maintained that Lily's soul/spirit has moved on, so I didn't understand why or how they were going to accomplish this without yanking her out of heaven. Seriously, did they not watch Season 6 of Buffy?
Moments I Loved: I loved when Will stood up for himself with the ghosts. It was a long time coming and showed a lot of growth for his character.
WTF Moments: All of the scenes with Erin, especially the end where you learn the truth about her death. Girl was crazy.
Overall: The weakest of the three Gost and Goth novels, I still enjoyed it, because it had plenty of laughs and one of my all time favorite male characters.
Reading Challenges: This book counts toward the following challenges: 316 pages toward the 15,000 page challenge, e-book challenge. Track all my progress on my 2012 Challenges page.
Body & Soul gets a FakeSteph rating of...
Posts
Oh my gosh, I have to read this series! I don't know what I am waiting for.
ReplyDeleteI have been meaning to read this series! It sounds really fun.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you definitely weren't giggling quite as much through this book as you did the first one. Still, I can't wait to finally get to it!
ReplyDeleteI did not see Season 6 of Buffy but I did see the big musical episode which was the one where Buffy revealed that she had been in Heaven the whole time and was pretty PO-ed that they dragged her back. So I do get your point there.
ReplyDeleteSo is this the ending? Cause I don't like hearing it was the weakest of the three. :( I hope I like it. At least Will is in it, right? ;)
ReplyDeleteI loved when Will stood up too! It was about time. This one was less funny, but I was happy with how it ended. Erin was absolutely bat shit crazy.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to start this series. Sounds cute. But maybe I'll stop at the 3rd one after reading this... : )
ReplyDeleteSince you've enjoyed this series so much I might have to check it out. It sounds kind of cute! I'm sorry you didnt enjoy this one as much as the others, it's always sad when a final book falls a little flat.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review Steph!