REVIEW: Ghost House by Alexandra Adornetto

After the loss of her mother, Chloe Kennedy starts seeing the ghosts that haunted her as a young girl again. Spending time at her grandmother's country estate in the south of England is her chance to get away from her grief and the spirits that haunt her. Until she meets a mysterious stranger…

                       

Alexander Reade is 157 years dead, with secrets darker than the lake surrounding Grange Hall and a lifelike presence that draws Chloe more strongly than any ghost before. But the bond between them awakens the vengeful spirit of Alexander's past love, Isobel. And she will stop at nothing to destroy anyone who threatens to take him from her.

 To stop Isobel, Chloe must push her developing abilities to their most dangerous limits, even if it means losing Alex forever… and giving the hungry dead a chance to claim her for their own.

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THE RUN-DOWN
When Chloe was a little girl, she was able to see ghosts. But her mother told her that if she told the ghosts to leave Chloe alone, then they would. And for the past ten years, Chloe didn't see a single spirit. That is, until her mother's death. Suddenly, Chloe is seeing ghosts all over the place.

Chloe's grandmother then decides that Chloe and her brother need to take a trip to England with her to Grange Hall, an old house that she fixed up.  And, of course, the house has ghosts. One of them is Alex, who is the very first ghost that Chloe can actually talk to and she has an undeniable attraction to. But not all ghosts are nice and Alex's past girlfriend does not like Chloe...

MY THOUGHTS

I just want to come out and say that I have never read a book by Alexandra Adornetto before, and I haven't exactly heard good things about her Halo series. But I decided, kind of on a whim, to read this book. To be honest, I was hoping for a good ghost book. I love ghost stories and I love books with ghosts; I find them scary but interesting at the same time. 

I don't think I looked close enough at the synopsis.

"Alexander Reade is 157 years dead."

Gosh, you mean that our main character falls in love with a guy who happens to be in the triple digits (and dead)? Hmmmm, I've never read a book like that before!

Yeah, this book wasn't going to be a nice creepy ghost story, just a stereotypical paranormal teen book.

It also doesn't help that the more I got into this book, the more it sounded almost exactly like another book I've read, The Deepest Cut (seriously, it's scary how similar these two books are).

I could probably deal with an unoriginal storyline, as long as it's entertaining, but I did have a major issue with this book. The romance was enormously cliché and full of, you guessed it, INSTA-LOVE.
The romance was what I call the "Bella and Edward Romance" because, just like those in Twilight, our main couple would continuously profess love to one another and that's it. There were no thoughts that would let us believe it, no build-up, just a "BUT I LOVE HIM!"
I didn't even know that Chloe was attracted to Alex until he talked about a previous girlfriend and then Chloe just gets all sad thinking that she could "never compete with her". Excuse me? When did you all of a sudden want to date this guy? You do know that he is dead, right?

I really wish that I could ignore the stupid romance, but it’s very hard to ignore. The focus of the book is on the psychotic ghost (which I'll say more about later), but Alex would always be popping up and suddenly BAM! cliché-ness!

I was actually okay with the book for a while in the beginning, but the romance in it just made me dislike more and more things about the book. I began to look at the characters in a lesser light for example. Chloe especially. I began to see her as an idiot, mostly because she thought that she could be in a relationship with a dead dude. But she also began to always call for Alex's help and just do idiotic things.
I also noticed holes in the story. Like the fact that we are never told how Chloe's mom dies! This is an important fact, but all we get to know is that she died!

Now, there is one thing that I did actually like about this book. I liked the psychotic ghost. I wanted a creepy ghost and I got some of that with this ghost. Granted, she was not exactly what I wanted for a ghost story, but she was definitely scary and that is what I want in a ghost book.

IN CONCLUSION

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of this book. It's just like every other YA paranormal book, with added cliche romance. If that's what you like, then you can give this a try. But if you're like me and want your ghost stories to be a little less romance and a lot more horror, then you should skip this one.

I'm probably not going to continue this saga (It's a trilogy, but it's called a 'saga'? Really?), but I am curious to see if this book is going to go the same direction as The Deepest Cut (Guys, I'm not joking at how similar these books are) since it looks like it might be...

I hereby give this book

2 Stars

Meaning: It was okay.