Review: MEAN SPIRITS

Mean Spirits by Meg Cabot
Book 3 of The Mediator series
Narrated by Johanna Parker
Format: paperback & unabridged playaway audiobook
Genre: YA, urban fantasy

About Mean Spirits:

Meet Susannah Simon: she's a typical teenage girl who just happens to be a ghost-hunter ...oh, and she's also dead-over-heels for Jesse - the sexiest spook ever! But can this girl get her ghost? In "Mean Spirits", Suze is all set to spend a relaxing summer on the beach, until she runs into the vengeful ghosts of four high-school students. She must use her mediating skills to guide these ghouls through the afterlife and stop them wreaking havoc in the present. In "Young Blood", Suze is heartbroken when gorgeous ghost Jesse doesn't seem to love her back. When his 150-year-old grave is unearthed in her backyard, she is determined to discover how and why he died. But one thing's for sure - digging up the past can be a deadly business...

Source: Info in the About Mean Spirits was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7704978-mean-spirits-young-blood on 19/10/2012.

Review:

I obviously like Johanna Parker so the narrator rating is of course a 5 out of 5. And I think the narration is the best part of this book. In book 1, Love You To Death, Susannah (the main protagonist) made mistakes but she hadn't been out and out stupid. For somebody who'd survived "mediating" and dealing with all kinds of souls including powerful vengeful ones, for years, she sure does not display an ounce of self preservation. Never mind sense. So Jesse tells her to run because these angry ghosts will kill her and she LAUGHS and dares the ghosts to "bring it on". When said ghosts beats the shit out of her, she whines. WTF! At which point not only do I want the ghosts to beat Susannah to a pulp but kill her as well because not only is she just too stupid to live and survived only by sheer dumb luck, but she was just asking for it! Would I recommend this book/series to anybody? No. The world building and story telling quality are not bad but the heroine is just too unbelievably moronic.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3
Character development = 1.5
Story itself = 2.5
Ending = 1.5
World building = 3
Cover art = 2
Pace = N/A (6 hours and 15 mins listening time)
Plot = 1.5
Narration = 5

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries

Thank you to the RCT Library for letting me borrow this audiobook.

FTC Disclosure:
The audiobook format was borrowed from the library. The paperback omnibus was purchased from Tesco with personal funds. No money received for this review.