Jenna Likes to Read

The Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty

Posted on 14 February 2011

The Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty

Description from Goodreads:

This is the story of Amelia and Riley, bad kids from bad Brookfield High who have transferred to Ashbury High for their final year. They’ve been in love since they were fourteen, they go out dancing every night, and sleep through school all day. And Ashbury can’t get enough of them.

Everyone’s trying to get their attention; even teachers are dressing differently, trying to make their classes more interesting. Everyone wants to be cooler, tougher, funnier, hoping to be invited into their cool, self-contained world.

But they don’t know that all Amelia can think about is her past — an idyllic time before she ran away from home. Riley thinks he’s losing her to the past, maybe even to a place further back in time. He turns to the students of Ashbury for help, and things get much, much worse.

In the tradition of the gothic novel, this is a story about ghosts, secrets, madness, passion, locked doors, femmes fatales, and that terrifying moment in the final year of high school when you realise that the future’s come to get you.

I’ve put off reviewing this book for a few days because I’m not really sure what I want to say.  On one hand, I did like the story.  I thought it was interesting and I wanted to keep reading to figure out what was going on.

On the other hand though, I kept thinking “OMG this book is loooooong.”  Once I got to Part 3, I was much more into it, but the first two sections of the book dragged.  Reading the same stories from different perspectives got old.  Yes, we learned something different each time, but by perspective #4, I was over it.  I also had a hard time understanding why Riley and Amelia were so interesting.  I think I struggled with this because it is Emily that is telling us they’re interesting and I had a hard time thinking of her as a credible narrator.  I liked Lydia a lot more, so I guess I fell on her side of thinking they’re just people.

But like I said, in the end, when things finally started to be revealed and interesting stuff actually happened, I was pretty into it, but if I hadn’t had friends tell me that the end is better than the beginning, I probably would have given up on it.

Read as part of the Aussie YA Challenge.