Reader reviewed by Reading Angel

I thought the concept of this book was great.  It was an original idea that could have made for an excellent book, unfortunately, that just didn't happen for me this time.  I loved the idea of the souls appearing to Steph and her having 48 hours to find the place where they died, plant a religious symbol of some kind, and send them to the other side.  I really enjoyed that she was able to glimpse heaven in those moments when the soul moved on, that was really beautiful to me.

As for characters, I just didn't feel like enough went in to character building, so I wasn't able to really connect with any of them.  I felt like I was really missing something in the relationship between Steph and Dylan.  It was almost as if this was the second book in a series and we should already know all of the history between them.  Since it wasn't book 2, the history was to be assumed and so I wasn't really able to feel the connection between them that was supposed to be there.

There were several scenes in the book that needed to be filled out more.  There's a super quick scene that happens in the cafeteria, and even though it's brought back up as an important moment in the book, it was so fast I wasn't even sure what happened there and was confused every time it was brought back up.  The transitions between scenes needed some work, I felt like it jumped from one thing to the other much too quickly.  Also Steph had really poor rationalization, which is a big pet peeve for me.  Every time she meets up with our bad boy Mark, she know she shouldn't, but then she'll tell her self the same thing every time. He wants to be with ME, and he doesn't freak out about my gift.  I got tired of her using that as her excuse for being with him.

By the end of the book I felt like there was several points that needed to be addressed and wrapped up, but were left hanging and confusing.  Overall, it was a good concept, and a quick fun read, but it definitely needed some more fine tuning in places.

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Reader reviewed by The Bookshelf Sophisticate

This turned out to be a little different from what I was expecting and I've been having trouble deciding how I feel about it overall. The main characters Stephanie and Dylan have gifts and an understanding of worlds and possibilities that your normal, average person cannot even begin to imagine. I have to admit that for starters I had a hard time believing the premise surrounding this plot. I didn't really connect or identify with any of the characters and I think that had a lot to do with my mixed feelings. I didn't really feel invested in the people or actions going on in the story while I was reading.

I do however, think the idea of "rescuers" (people that help souls/spirits cross over to the other side) is fascinating and wonderful but I kind of wish I got more of a detailed background than I did. I'm not sure if this is a stand alone novel, or will be the first installment in a series, but to be honest I could see it going either way. I normally don't encourage too much detail or a slower pacing of the plot but with this story I think I would have been able to enjoy it more if there was a more detailed background given about the characters and ideas surrounding the novel. Maybe a slowing of the pace - I kind of felt like the second half of the story was rushed. Mine is just one opinion, but this just wasn't a favorite of mine. Maybe if this becomes a series I'll be able to take a look at the sequel and be pleasantly surprised, fingers crossed.