A NIGHT OWL REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW | Reviewed by: Diana Coyle
Fourteen year old Krysta Richards isn’t your average teenage girl. If you look at her, she looks like an ordinary teenager, but she holds a secret that very few people know about. Krysta’s secret is she can see dead people and carry on conversations with them. It’s not a fun thing that happens to her, but she has no control over stopping it. It seems that if a dead person needs assistance in some way, they contact Krysta and ask her to help them out. That’s exactly what Gertrude and Ed did.
You see, the town of Greenwood is building a new shopping mall that will open in two years. Although that seems like a wonderful idea, it really isn’t because the contractor decided they’ll pave over an old cemetery and use it as the mall’s parking lot. Even though Gertrude and Ed have been dead for quite some time now, they are disturbed that their resting place is being desecrated. How could the builders even consider paving over this gravesite? So one night they pay Krysta a visit and ask for her to find a way to stop the parking lot from happening. Krysta thinks this isn’t such a bad request, but has no idea how a fourteen year old is going to make a difference in having the contractors stop moving forward with their plans.
As if this isn’t enough to worry about, her new chemistry lab partner needs someone to study with. Bryon is Mr. Hottie in the school and Krysta is beside herself that he wants to study with her. But every time they meet up to study together, it seems they never can find a place to do some work that won’t disturb their parents in any way. Finally, they decide to go to the local coffee house right behind Krysta’s apartment and they’ll study there. But when they walk in, the last thing they get to do is study. Once they see Sunny, the girl that works there, all battered and bruised up, they know something is seriously wrong. And to top it off, Sunny seems to be very anxious to chase them out of the coffee house once her controlling boyfriend arrives a short time after Krysta and Bryon do. When they both arrive at school the next day, they can’t believe the news they hear everyone talking about.
What is the news that they find out when they arrive at school the following morning? How does it affect Krysta and Bryon? Does Krysta come up with any ideas to help Gertrude and Ed from having their graves paved over to make the new mall parking lot? What does Krysta find out about herself while she’s trying to work to resolve some of these issues she’s facing right now?
Ms. West outdid herself yet again with this third book in the Whispers series. I loved getting to know Krysta more personally in this story, which was solely dedicated to her and her special ability. Since she was introduced in the first two books of the series, by this book I felt as if she was an old friend to me. Ms. West knows how to write creatively for young adults and keeps her readers interested in the storyline from the start. Her stories have wonderful characters that teenagers can relate to and if it’s an adult reader reading the story, she has a way of making you remember your younger years. I enjoyed seeing Krysta learn how to use her ability of talking and seeing the dead and I felt bad for her that she was different than most kids her age. I loved how Ms. West developed Krysta’s friends, AJ and Sophie, to also be teenagers with special abilities, although they each possessed different talents than Krysta’s. I was glad to see the three girls had each other to lean on knowing how each one felt about being different than other teenagers around them. This story can stand alone, but I would highly recommend you read the books in order for you to fully enjoy the series and what it has to offer its readers.
Jul 29, 2009 | 1-60154-598-3
5 - Rare Top Pick | 4.5 - Top Pick | 4 - I Liked It | 3.5 - Enjoyable | 3 - OK | 2.5 - It just didn't click
Book Blurb for Krysta's Curse
YA Climbing Rosebud
Rating: sweet
Page Count: 156
Everything about Krysta Richards is wrong, from her short height to her unmanageable hair. Her ability to talk to spirits doesn’t help things, either. Her physical flaws don’t seem to matter to Bryon, her lab partner. Just as the chemistry between them is about to ignite, a homicide detective asks her to summon a murder victim, her drunk father suddenly takes an interest in her life and her dead friends enlist her in a crusade to save their decrepit cemetery.
She dreams of gracing the cover of Cosmo, but if she can't get her life back to normal, she’ll be labeled the poster child for Weirdo.
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