Review: The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

Title: The Ghost and the Goth
Author: Stacey Kade
Publisher: Hyperion
Pub. Date: 6.29.2010
Genre: Paranormal YA
Keywords: Ghosts, Seer, High School, Romance, Social Identity
Pages: 281
Description (from Goodreads):
Alona Dare–Senior in high school, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, Homecoming Queen three years in a row, voted most likely to marry a movie star… and newly dead.

I’m the girl you hated in high school. Is it my fault I was born with it all-good looks, silky blond hair, a hot bod, and a keen sense of what everyone else should not be wearing? But my life isn’t perfect, especially since I died. Run over by a bus of band geeks—is there anything more humiliating? As it turns out, yes—watching your boyfriend and friends move on with life, only days after your funeral. And you wouldn’t believe what they’re saying about me now that they think I can’t hear them. To top it off, I’m starting to disappear, flickering in and out of existence. I don’t know where I go when I’m gone, but it’s not good. Where is that freaking white light already?

Will Killian–Senior in high school, outcast, dubbed “Will Kill” by the popular crowd for the unearthly aura around him, voted most likely to rob a bank…and a ghost-talker.

I can see, hear, and touch the dead. Unfortunately, they can also see, hear and touch me. Yeah, because surviving high school isn’t hard enough already. I’ve done my best to hide my “gift.” After all, my dad, who shared my ability, killed himself because of it when I was fifteen. But lately, pretending to be normal has gotten a lot harder. A new ghost—an anonymous, seething cloud of negative energy with the capacity to throw me around—is pursuing me with a vengeance. My mom, who knows nothing about what I can do, is worrying about the increase in odd incidents, my shrink is tossing around terms like “temporary confinement for psychiatric evaluation,” and my principal, who thinks I’m a disruption and a faker, is searching for every way possible to get rid of me. How many weeks until graduation?


Stacey Kade's THE GHOST AND THE GOTH is just so. much. fun. 


I've come to appreciate novels in which the point-of-view switches between two or more characters, and I think that this tactic works really well with this particular novel. When characters are like Will and Alona, coming from totally different backgrounds with completely different views about people and their surroundings, and the reader knows their hatred is going to turn into some kind of smoldering attraction, being able to experience both characters' emotions and snarky thoughts makes the buildup so much more intense.


I liked Will right from the start of the novel, but Alona took a bit longer to grow on me. I was worried that I'd continue liking Will and Alona wouldn't grow on me, then the romantic plot line would fall flat, but not the case! There's more to Alona than meets the eye... Which is good because, even though Will is a teenage boy who appreciates Alona from the outside, the reader might want a bit more for him.


This novel isn't all ghosts, witty banter, and growing attraction though, there are some more serious elements as well. Kade seamlessly wove these elements into the supernatural plotline... It would spoilery to go into detail, but this aspect of the novel was done extremely well.


I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment of Will and Alona's story, QUEEN OF THE DEAD, which will be released this summer!