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A review by michellereadatrix
The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Pluses: Sapphic rep, type 1 diabetes rep, a medical alert dog, an old house.
Format: audiobook
I really didn't vibe too well with the main character and had questions about her podcast.
Dare is a teen girl planning on spending part of the summer remodeling an old house. She has a haunted house podcast, and this house is allegedly haunted by a girl who'd drowned in the lake. Dare has diabetes and brings her dog with her her to alert her to blood sugar fluctuations, although Waffles is a bit flighty in his duties, we are told.
Dare meets a girl who becomes a friend and another who becomes a bit more.
The thing is, Dare is very skeptical and almost completely convinced the supernatural isn't real. That she feels this way is news to the various people who've listened her her podcast, and she is presented as pretty honest, so I'm perplexed as to what she says during the thing.
I expected her to act like a podcaster, but there was very little of that. Moments that it seems you would document go barely remarked upon. She has some hidden cameras. But I don't think it was until 65% she takes a picture that makes sense. The podcast thing felt like a reason to get her there and to provide a couple clues, and that's about it.
Because she is absurdly skeptical she sucks the fun out of the room. I think it's great to look for a practical solution or trickery, but it just got dumb after a while. Because she believed in nothing until late in the day, the book lacked chills because she wasn't ... chilled.
By the time she got in the game, I had largely checked out. And then the ending seemed tonally odd, but that might have been the narrator. However, the narrator I realized is the reason I'd given Dare the benefit of the doubt as long as I had. She made Dare sound intelligent and curious in a way that didn't feel backed up by the words.
Reviews are always subjective, and another reader might not care about how the podcast was treated as a plot device more than a reality of the character's life, and might like Dare being very much a "Scully." While I felt the tone at the end was odd -- this feels, again, like the narrator -- that might be in part because I was no longer all in with the story.
The romance was cute, the friendships were cute, the mystery was interesting, with an okay twist. I always enjoy a dog, especially since the YA of it all made me feel he was pretty safe. The history of the house is sad, and a couple events at the end are also sad, so there's some weight there.
Format: audiobook
I really didn't vibe too well with the main character and had questions about her podcast.
Dare is a teen girl planning on spending part of the summer remodeling an old house. She has a haunted house podcast, and this house is allegedly haunted by a girl who'd drowned in the lake. Dare has diabetes and brings her dog with her her to alert her to blood sugar fluctuations, although Waffles is a bit flighty in his duties, we are told.
Dare meets a girl who becomes a friend and another who becomes a bit more.
The thing is, Dare is very skeptical and almost completely convinced the supernatural isn't real. That she feels this way is news to the various people who've listened her her podcast, and she is presented as pretty honest, so I'm perplexed as to what she says during the thing.
I expected her to act like a podcaster, but there was very little of that. Moments that it seems you would document go barely remarked upon. She has some hidden cameras. But I don't think it was until 65% she takes a picture that makes sense. The podcast thing felt like a reason to get her there and to provide a couple clues, and that's about it.
Because she is absurdly skeptical she sucks the fun out of the room. I think it's great to look for a practical solution or trickery, but it just got dumb after a while. Because she believed in nothing until late in the day, the book lacked chills because she wasn't ... chilled.
By the time she got in the game, I had largely checked out. And then the ending seemed tonally odd, but that might have been the narrator. However, the narrator I realized is the reason I'd given Dare the benefit of the doubt as long as I had. She made Dare sound intelligent and curious in a way that didn't feel backed up by the words.
Reviews are always subjective, and another reader might not care about how the podcast was treated as a plot device more than a reality of the character's life, and might like Dare being very much a "Scully." While I felt the tone at the end was odd -- this feels, again, like the narrator -- that might be in part because I was no longer all in with the story.
The romance was cute, the friendships were cute, the mystery was interesting, with an okay twist. I always enjoy a dog, especially since the YA of it all made me feel he was pretty safe. The history of the house is sad, and a couple events at the end are also sad, so there's some weight there.