Review: The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen (K. Howe)
This book took creepy and confused to a whole new level. I wasn't even sure what was going on half of the time, because while Annie was obviously (spoiler alert, but not really) a ghost, this book seemed determined to try and keep us in the dark about it, continually dancing around the topic and making us second guess ourselves, never actually using the word "ghost". Which I didn't really mind, but it would have been nice to have some sense of clarity or certainty on that front. I don't even know what day it is half of the time (true story), so why are you expecting me to extrapolate from this story?
Overall the characters were decent, but I felt like they leaned too heavily towards just having one (or a couple) defining characteristic(s) versus being extremely well rounded. Wes was not my favorite, since he seemed a bit arrogant and flighty, but also a little too fixated on the whole mysterious-Annie thing. Annie herself I wasn't a fan of, since she seemed a little too much of a damsel-in-distress. Her backstory, on the other hand... now that was something I really enjoyed. It was a little hard to piece together because we only got tiny snippets of it every once in a while, but the snippets we did get, I loved. I love historical fiction, whether the past events are real or fake, and Annie's parts were definitely along those lines. It made me want to read historical fiction again, since I'm currently on a bit of a hiatus right now as I devour all of the science fiction and fantasy books ever written in my desperate attempt to catch up.
The largest issue I had with this book was the plot, or lack thereof. The book seemed to bounce from plot point to plot point, without any real direction or transition. It was one of those books where I loved individual plots and scenes, but really didn't like how they were strung together. The scenes were creative and original, I just don't feel like they all belonged together in the same book. This made the writing a tad disjointed and difficult to read, which really wasn't doing the book any favors.
I thought this book was decent, but nothing super special. If it was part of a series I definitely wouldn't read the second one, but I'm not sure that I would necessarily warn people away from reading this one because it is interesting, and it is unique. So I would vote for giving it a try.
3/5 Stars