Review: Body & Soul (The Ghost and the Goth, #3) by Stacey Kade

Rating (Out of 5): ~4-4.5

Publisher: Hyperion (Disney Book Group)

Spoilers?: No, very minor.

Amazon Synopsis:

 Alona Dare has been living as Lily “Ally” Turner for over a month...and it's not been easy. Besides being trapped in a body so not as good as her original one, she's failing miserably at playing the sister and daughter of people she barely knows. Plus, she can't help but think that Will Killian - the boy she hates to care about - somehow wishes the real Lily were back.

 She and Will have been trying to find a solution, looking for a two-for-one miracle that would free Alona and keep Lily alive. Visits to local psychics have proven useless, but then they stumble across Malachi the Magnificent, who seems to be different. His office is full of ghosts, for one thing. But Malachi doesn’t seem to hear or see them, which is odd. Plus, he bolts the moment he sees Will. To make things even weirder, Misty Evans, Alona's former best friend, is waiting in Malachi's lobby and claiming that she's being haunted. By Alona.

Will's convinced that Malachi has answers, while Alona is all kinds of pissed that someone's impersonating her. But their efforts to uncover the truth will bring them much unwanted attention and put them directly in the path of a ghost who will stop at nothing for another stab at life. Even if it means destroying Alona.

Review:

I was really looking forward to this book, although a bit worried, but mostly excited. And I’m not really sure if it was everything I was hoping for. It was really good, yes, but it just didn’t seem as polished or as good as the last few.

This book was the conclusion to the series, which is upsetting, but it was a good ending, so that was nice. It starts off somewhat close to where the last one ended, and moves forward pretty smoothly. I was a bit surprised at some of it, when we met some new people, and maybe would have liked to meet more people like Will, but it was interesting nonetheless. I won’t spoil what happens, but I wasn’t expecting it when starting the novel (although I did leave my mind open to whatever was going to happen). It was good, and I liked the ending. It’s what I was hoping would happen.

In the other books, I really liked Will and Alona, and I still did in this book, but they didn’t seem as perfected, as in-character, as they should have been. A little exaggerated, maybe, or immature. Some of it just seemed like Kade could have gone over the book again, like it needed another edit run-through for the characters and just some general sentences, and it would have been as good as the previous ones. I’m disappointed about it. Also, Will and Alona were fighting way too much, almost always arguing with each other. I get that they were unhappy with each other, but there was too much couple-angst going on, and it bothered me. I’m not sure if that’s just because I wanted more romantic stuff to happen or because it wasn’t all that well done, though. Maybe the previous books were building up to this, to this problem for them to fight over? It might have just been me, since it did have some reason.

Aside from that I enjoyed it. As I said, I liked the ending. The whole choosing thing was nice, and I was happy with it.