AmySea

Such a great book to read at this time of year (Halloween) when you live in Seattle! The sky is grey right now, it's a little bit foggy and damp outside. The leaves are changing, there is an earthy smell of decaying vegetation in the air, the big trees and prolific plant life gives everything a darker, spookier feel, and I'm only a few miles from where this story takes place. The environment I'm in now enhances the book, and the book enhances the environment.

This ghost story started out a little bit slowly for me, but [a:Nick DiMartino|224190|Nick DiMartino|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1342195183p2/224190.jpg] does an excellent job of developing real characters that you come to know and sympathize with. Aside from a good ghost story, I loved the various threads that the author wove into this book; religion, family, self-identity, love, homosexuality, parent-child relationships. It was a book that went deeper than what it seemed on the surface, and that made it more satisfying to read.

I wasn't overwhelmingly impressed with the narration done by Cameron Beierle. He wasn't a bad narrator, but sometimes the emotion that should have been present in his voice was absent or sometimes not quite the right pitch. There was often a calmness in his voice when there should have been more panic, or a softeness when there should have been more sharpness. I also noticed that these Seattleites had slight New York accents given to them by Beierle. This was an odd choice, I thought, because as far as I could tell from the story, these characters were not from New York. Additionally, a New York accent just isn't something that we hear all that often way out here on the opposite coast in Seattle, so it did stick out to me, and it slightly distracted me. Overall, though, the narration was just fine, and the story was entertaining.