MODERATE SPOILERS INCLUDED
Plot
New York girl Charlotte Feldman is 16 years old. And she has just died. After being pushed under a subway train, she
wakes up in the Hotel Attessa – in limbo between life and death – and is
greeted by fellow dead teens Nancy and Lorna.
The Dead Girls Detective Agency follows Charlotte as she tries to solve
her own murder with her two new friends and as well as encountering many
obstacles on the way: what’s going to happen to her long-term relationship with
her boyfriend, David? And what’s the deal with the other Attessa residents,
moody Tess and mysterious, but cute, Edison?
Good points
In short, it’s evident that the author has an excellent
imagination. I loved the concept that she created; imagine The Lovely Bones
meets typical teen fiction (with cheerleaders and all!) Plus, Suzy Cox provides the reader with numerous,
delicious, little, fictional treats such as giving the ghosts a variety of powers
which the characters (and the readers!) have a lot of fun with throughout the
novel.
Despite the topic, it was actually quite a light-hearted
book with just the right amount of misery emanating from Charlotte, considering
that she is murdered at the beginning of the story. Cox also strikes up an enjoyable chatty tone
between Charlotte and the reader, complete with amusing teen initialisms like ‘BS’,
‘WTF’ and ‘OMG’. Plus, Cox doesn’t
forget to balance out the novel with a bit of required teen angst. In general, the characters are quite positive
throughout so when they do express their troubles it’s all the more effective.
And finally, there’s a great twist in the last couple of
pages; something that always makes a satisfying ending.
Bad points
Okay, so I know I’m not particularly patient with
protagonists and I know I should let Charlotte off a bit (what with being dead and
all), but I must say, she was quite annoying.
On occasion, she’s actually quite mean to Nancy and Lorna even though
they are always trying to help her. She also
has really inconsistent behaviour; one minute she’s sad when there’s a lack of
progress with her murder investigation and the next minute she’s telling everyone
to stop bothering her about it!
Another disappointment was the murderer. Although their motives and back-story were
interesting, it wasn’t anyone that Charlotte knew personally so the majority of
the Detective Agency’s investigation throughout the novel was irrelevant.
Lastly, when I picked up this book I was really excited as I
love YA and I love crime drama. However,
I felt that there wasn’t enough investigation in it at all for a murder mystery.
Overall, the book was more about
Charlotte coming to terms with being a ghost and, to put it bluntly, excessively
trying out all of her new super-cool ghost powers. ***
Summary
To conclude, this was a fabulous novel with an interesting
concept and with just the right amount of teen-ness. Its only downfalls were the inconsistencies
of the protagonist’s behaviour and the lack of investigative vigour.
Therefore...
Rating = 4 stars.
Additional points
*** I came to the conclusion that The Dead Girls Detective
Agency must be the first novel of a series as it felt like this was only an
introduction into the world of the Hotel Attessa. And I was right. The second one was out in January 2014! *Cue Amazon browsing.*
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