Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade - Advanced Copy

If you have not read The Ghost and The Goth, then read at your own risk, this contains spoilers!


The Gist

Queen of the Dead
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Alona Dare, miss popular of the school, and Will Killian, resident goth-boy, have been spending a lot of time together.  That may have something to do with the fact that she's newly dead and he can see the dead. Since being run over by a bus, Alona has been helping Will aid the dead in moving to the other side, by fulfilling their strange last requests.  They have a good system going, until one night while helping a particularly irritated old ghost, their well-worn routine is interrupted by mysterious ghost seer Mina.  She's the first seer he's ever met, and Will is instantly curious to know her, but Alona isn't so quick to trust this cranky, exotic stranger.  Probably because she's a ghost, and Mina really hates ghosts.  Add this to the fact that Alona's parents are moving on with their lives and leaving her behind, and the looming 'friends or more than that' question between her and Will., and what's left is one cranky and hurt Alona who's willing to do anything to get what she wants/  And that can only lead to trouble.  


What We Think
Reviewed by Living Destiny
Number of Pages: 266
This book is the sequel to The Ghost and The Goth, also by Stacey Kade (duh), which came out last summer.  As dorky as it is, I've been eagerly awaiting this book since I finished the first one.  In fact, when the author agreed to send us an advanced copy, I'm pretty sure Dream and I jumped up and down shouting 'yes!' (which garnered us some very interesting looks).  So yes, as silly as this book sounds, I was looking forward to reading it.  Quite a bit.
Before I say anything about the actual content, I have to say: the cover art is awful.  Really, truly bad.  The background is bland, the people look too forced in their poses, and the boy looks kind of ugly.  The whole thing is just totally unappealing.  It's not the sort of art that makes me want to read a book, or even pick it up off a book display in stores.  Ok, now that that's over, I can focus on the story itself.  Since it's the second in a series, the plot does spill over from the last book.  Will and Alona are the same people although I liked them a little less in this book than the first.  Well, that actually isn't true.  It just bothered me that Alona was so selfish, bratty and impulsive.  More so than usual, anyway.  But then she redeemed herself by being very selfless, even if she was still slightly annoying.  And Will was irritating at points because he was too trusting of some things.  But in the end he was his capable, intelligent self, and I appreciated him for it.  Mina, the biggest new character, I didn't like much at all.   She, like Alona, was selfish and bossy, but while with Alona it's somehow ok; on Mina it's just obnoxious, and I really wanted to punch her in the face most times.  She wasn't likable at all, which is ok because she wasn't meant to be.  The actual storyline of this book was super interesting.  I know, with a name like Queen of the Dead it sounds like a super-cheesy, overdone young adult book that's trying too hard.  But it isn't!  It introduced some new philosophies on ghosts - what they are, how they work, what should be done with them - that strongly differed from Will's which made for an exciting clash.  There was this crazy twist about halfway through that's multiplied by at least five near the end.  I'm pretty sure my jaw actually hit the floor.  I'm still not sure how I feel about it, whether I like it or not.  It's just so...gah!  GAAAAH!!!  Yea, it's sort of shocking, if you couldn't tell.  But even besides the major twists, the book never got dull.  It held my attention for the whole story.  The fact that it's told from both Will and Alona's points of view helps it stay interesting, because it can easily tell two different aspects of the story in first person.  I liked the whole mystery about WIll's dad and his littler adventures (for lack of a better word), and the continuation of Lily's story with Will and Alona's.  In fact, I liked this more than I liked the first book, maybe because it seemed like it had more substance.  For whatever reason, it was better than The Ghost and The Goth, and was an excellent second-in-a-series book.  It may sound goofy, it may look goofy, and sure, it IS a little goofy, but it's surprisingly entertaining, and I'm already longing for book three.  
Real Teen Rating~ B+: Wait for vacation.