A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner

 Summary: Cass and her drama-crazy best friend, Julia, were planning a road trip to California. When Julia is killed in a car accident, Cass decides to follow the original plan anyway. Even if she has a bicycle instead of a driver’s licence, and even if Julia’s ashes are coming along in Tupperware.

This is a story about friendship. About love. About traveling a thousand miles just to find yourself. And it’s a story about the kookiest high school musical one quiet suburb has ever seen.

Review: The summary of this book drew me in immediately and I thought I was going to be in for a fantastic read. Unfortunately, the story fell flat for me and I was left feeling disappointed.

Cass was a likable enough lead, but she just wasn’t distinctive enough to make a lasting impression on me. She could be very selfish at times, and had a real problem facing up to her issues. A lot of the story talked about how much Cass felt excluded when her best friend Julia made new friends, but in reality, if Cass had actually made any effort, she would have been readily accepted into the new group.

Speaking of the supporting characters, they were another issue for me. They suffered from a lack of development to the point where they all more or less blurred into one for me. They were also very stereotypical, don’t break the mold types of characters and I felt it was a real shame that the author didn’t take the time to flesh them out more, as strong supporting characters can often lift a book from being average, to being great.

The time jumps in the book were quite jerky and sometimes took away from the flow of the story. It could have been improved if the jumps to the ‘Then’ chapters actually related to what was going on in the ‘Now’ chapters, but to me, it just felt too much like two completely different stories.

Overall, the book was a sometimes fun, but mostly disappointing read. If the author had spent more time developing stronger characters, I think the outcome could have been quite different.

Rating: 2 and a 1/2 out of 5