The Dead and Buried by Kim Harrington

I was sick today, so I got the whole day to just relax and read. My choice of book for the day was The Dead and Buried by Kim Harrington. This is the first book I’ve even been able to read for pleasure since the beginning of the New Year. I know what you’re thinking: How have I lived? Well, it’s been tough, but The Dead and Buried was a good book to start me off on my exciting (albeit belated) year of reading!

            Jade Kelley’s dream has always been to move out of Nowhereville, Massachusetts and into a larger city, like Woodridge. Her dreams are finally realized as she enters her senior year of high school, but there is a dark storm cloud hovering over her paradise: She has moved into a house that was once inhabited by a girl who would have been in the same grade at the same school as Jade, but she was murdered at the end of her junior year… and she’s still there. Kayla was the on top of the world in her life, so who would have killed her? She refuses to leave the house until Jade can find out her killer and threatens to kill her brother if she does not comply. And there’s also the matter of Kayla’s cute ex-boyfriend, the boy with the black hair and crystalline eyes. Will Jade discover Kayla’s killer before Kayla goes on a rampage and kills Jade’s brother?

            There was one character I especially liked in this story and that was Jade. She was a slightly awkward 17-year-old girl who spoke before she thought and didn’t really care what other people thought of her and she was really funny…. In other words, me. I guess the right term wouldn’t be that I “liked” her because then that would be saying that I like myself, so… I could connect to her really well. I could see myself reacting to situations in the same ways that she did, so if you’re like me (or the description above), you’ll really like/connect with Jade.

            Donovan, the aforementioned ex-boyfriend, was alright, I guess. He was sweet, caring, considerate, and in the beginning, broken. He didn’t really have any flaws to speak of, so if you like the dreamy, perfect-type boy, then you’ll love Donovan! I thought that the plethora of other characters were also well done because each one was distinctively different.

            I was completely unable to guess who the killer was. I couldn’t guess AT ALL. Though I’m not sure if that’s because my flu-fogged brain was unable to comprehend it or it was actually a mystery, because it could honestly be either one. However, I did like the story because I like pretty much any story where the main character is introduced into a new environment, surrounded by all new people. For some reason that just really interests me, probably because it has never happened to me, but I always secretly hoped it would…

            In summation, this was a book with an awesome main character, a good plot, and a good mystery, though it didn’t COMPLETELY blow me out of the water.

This was a really good book! 4 Smileys!