I didn't know this, until I looked it up, but apparently a short story set before these events explain in better detail what happened to Madison. The short story appears in the anthology Prom Nights From Hell. Also equally important to point out, far as I know this doesn't tie into her mainstream series The Hollows (or the Rachel Morgan books, whatever you want to call them). This is my first time reading Kim Harrison, in any form, as well.

My very first thought while reading this was that even though its a YA, I don't think its a great idea to have the MC finding her killer attractive. I don't care if he's David Tennant good looking, she shouldn't still think he's hot after being killed by him. It just...squicks me. That's a pet peeve however and shouldn't be counted against the book.

The book moved fast, keeping up the momentum that is started in the first chapter or so. It's not WHAM-BAM-THANK YOU MA'AM fast, but it moves along quickly enough to make you go 'huh? wait. back pedal' when character development emerges. Since I haven't read the short story, I can only assume that the lack of substantial coverage over Madison's Prom Night is covered in depth in that story, but for me I had to piece together most of it from the random comments made by Madison and company.

I was intrigued by the fact that there are 'light' and 'dark' reapers hanging around this mortal coil, duking it out to either kill or save a person who decides to march off the beaten path of fate. I would have been perfectly content if we just learned about them the entire time, since the dynamics were rather interesting to contemplate. We were also introduced to Timekeepers and seraphs however, making things a bit more complicated.

I think that Harrison over reached her audience a little bit. In mainstream paranormals, complicated entangled relationships are the norm, from my experience in young adult paranormals the complicated relationships tend to stay centered around a couple characters--not the main character and the entire cast of supporting. By the halfway point of the book I couldn't honestly tell you that I understood what was going on completely. Someone was after Madison, she had a lot more to worry about other then the phantom 'living' person feelings she was supposed to not be having and her mentor was starting to look shady. That's all I really got.

Like I said I was intrigued by the dark vs. light reapers and Madison was an interesting character, but there wasn't enough backstory to back up her feelings or frustrations properly. The world seemed distractedly built--or it might have been because I was too busy trying to keep Team Good and Team Evil straight to notice the world building details and the supporting cast was all over the place. The twist at the end left reasonable interest for me to want to read the next book however.

Oh and the banter/bickering with practically everyone in the cast that Nakita engaged in was priceless. She was my favorite character I think, with Grace in a close second. ( )

An OK read that made me miss the TV series Dead Like Me. The TV series was better, but this one has some potential to grow into a decent story. ( )

I was disappointed. The story sounded interesting and it was written by one of my favorite authors!
I listened to this story and a lot of it was repetitive.. A shame because I
liked the characters but I just got a 'blah' feeling... ( )

I'm a big fan of Kim Harrison and I've always looked forward to her Hollows novels, so I never understood why I had never read her YA novels. For some odd reason, I thought they were about vampires, having never read the blurbs even. My initial reaction was... it's ok. Not my favorites, and not as bad as some urban fantasy I've read, but definitely not at the top of my list. Hell, it's still a sight better than some installments from one of my heavily looking-forward-to urban fantasy authors.

That being said, the novel itself requires more than just a tiny bit of reading comprehension skills, so perhaps it is simultaneously too much for the worst YA readers and too simple for the best. It just didn't have the right mix. I think I would have enjoyed it much more had she written it for her adult audiences with the appropriate extra angst and gore and consequences. The basic concepts reminded me of Bleach with a bit more time travel mixed in. Pretty interesting, all told.

The rest of the teenager stuff I could always do without, but that's the nature of YA reading. I'm not judging against it.

There was just ... something ... that needed to happen, that didn't. Otherwise, I enjoyed the nice powerups and twists.
( )

Madison Avery died on her prom night. Targeted by a dark reaper, she died at the bottom of a ravine when her car flipped into it. But Madison's soul stole it's amulet before the reaper could take her. Now she's living with the appearance of a body thanks to her stolen amulet. She's able to carry on her normal life...sort of. But the dark reapers are after her. They want the amulet back and her soul.

Kim Harrison has a tendency to information dump in her first book of a series. It's just her particular style of world building, to throw it all out front for people to see. While this is a huge pet peeve of mine, The Hollows series taught me that Kim has a lot more to offer in books that continue the series. But this time I have to take a star away for it. Madison is given the world building information early on in the story. Ok fine, I expected it. But then Madison repeats this same information, almost word for word with another character later on. This is a waste of page space and my time.

Madison is a repetitive and whiney character. She plunges headfirst into situations even when she knows the results are going to end up a disaster. I wouldn't mind such tendencies if there was a decent storyline to follow. This is targeted towards the younger side of YA, with the fact Madison is more concerned with catching a cute guy than keeping her head above water.

And talk about annoying characters...Grace is horrible. Madison is assigned a guardian angel to try and hide her from the dark reapers. It talks in limericks and acts like an immature child. I think Grace was supposed to be the comic relief, pulling pranks to keep Madison from getting into trouble, but every time I saw her dialogue pop up, I wanted to just skip the lines. Again, I am not the targeted audience and I won't be too harsh on my rating because of it. I will not be continuing the series. ( )