so, when i am cleaning house, i like to have some sort of police procedural on in the background. i don't know why, i just find them soothing - the shape of the narrative tends to be consistent, and they usually have enough action sequences for me to pace my laundry-folding and book restacking in a productive way. 
 there is a definite preference-hierarchy to the shows i will watch. law and order (excluding criminal intent) is the preferred choice. ncis and criminal minds are lower, and as i have only recently discovered them, 'cuz my dad likes them, there are a ton i haven't seen, which is nice. they are nowhere near as good as law and order, but they will do - sometimes they have good guest actors and some original plotlines. criminal intent comes somewhere down after them - i hate the music for the show, and i hate how every episode ends the same way. in desperate times, i will watch without a trace or csi, but i kind of hate them. but - the house has to get cleaned, right? and it's all background noise anyway. 
 but the point is, and there is a point - i can remember the plots of most of the law and orders i have seen. the other shows just kind of form this hazy memory of "something i experienced once to pass the time." and that's how i feel about this book, i guess. i mean - looking at the ratings on here, people are over the moon about it. and it has good things going for it, but at the end of the day, it was a diversion, and nothing more, a YA mystery novel with more ambition than some, but not a favorite. 
 it is similar in a lot of ways to before i fall - dead girl only realizes after she is dead what a horrible bitch she was when she was alive. but instead of getting to go back and try to change certain things, ghost-liz and the ghost of a boy from her school who also recently died can only observe what happens after her death, and slip back and view random episodes from their pasts to try to figure out the mysteries of their deaths. 
 as a mystery novel, it is enjoyable. even though it is predictable, the pacing is fast, and it is a true page-turner.i read this in two giant gulps, and it was never boring, even when it was clear what the big reveal was going to be.there is something satisfying about it, like chugging orange juice on a really hot day 
 but the characters. i couldn't stand any of them. to be fair - they were well-drawn, and every character flaw was shown to have its origin in some presumably forgivable backstory explanation: "i am this way because this person made me this way, and she was like that because she was going through this and that, and the person who was upsetting her was only doing it because blah, etc etc etc." so, kudos for exhaustive psychological padding. 
 but at the end of the day, ugh. i may need to use the spoiler button. and this is a real spoiler, not like some people who use them (successfully) to be cute. this is going to be a spoiler-filled rant. 
 (view spoiler)[ because seriously - she KILLED SOMEONE!!! and her first impulse is to hide the crime because hey, what's another person's life compared to the pretty girl's freedom? and yes, she gets sucked into some weird sexual blackmail gig, and her anorexia worsens, and she runs herself into illness and then she gets murdered, so it's not as though her actions don't have consequences, and it's not like she doesn't feel guilty about what she has done, but i really still can't feel any sympathy. i know it is a novel,and i know it is just meant to be entertaining or instructive (don't let popularity control your life and make you into a mega-bitch, for starters) etc, but again, she killlled someone. and she was a hair-pulling, rich bitch who acted snotty before and after she died. and why?? because mommy died when she was nine? and planted the seeds of shallowness and self-absorption in her? and daddy wasn't around much?? i mean, at some point, you gotta be realistic. nine years is a long time to not be able to find any positive role models, adult or otherwise. and if richie is this anomaly in the crowd - someone who was a drug-dealing saint who loved this snotty girl but was still able to talk civilly to the common man - surely some of it would have rubbed off on her. or he would have lost patience with her behavior, right? it is just frustrating to be asked to sympathize with some drunk spoiled hit and run bitch who has just puked all over her friends rug and calmly walked out the door without a backwards glance to run over some kid on a bike. who is apparently also a noble saint because he just forgives her because he realizes she is sad... ugh. and i don't care how much of a workaholic you are, if your first wife died from anorexia, and your daughter starts getting really skinny really fast, surely an alarm goes off in your head??? surely?? how does no one say, "girl, you are getting too skinny, eat a sandwich." people notice, but given her mom's history, does no one think it would be productive to intervene? i mean, maybe after she passes out from hunger and gets a concussion?? no?? no one?? i know i am barking at the realism content of a teen mystery novel, but in the aftermath of reading it, i become more frustrated. but i did like it when i was reading it, don't get me wrong... (hide spoiler)] 
 yeesh. 
 so, yeah, all that. 
 i think she is a good writer, and i am going to read more of her books, but this one, while superfun to read while reading it, has already passed from my memory, despite all that rarrrring i just did.