Author: Kira Snyder
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Paranormal Fantasy
Goodreads rating: 4.71 out of 5.00
Goodreads | Amazon
Autumn in New Orleans means Homecoming, romance—and murder. When a friend vanishes, Celia believes a desperate letter about an unsolved Civil War-era murder holds the key to unraveling the mystery.
As she searches for answers, Celia enlists the help of quirky witch Tilly, and either all-American boy Donovan or, enigmatic Luc–you get to choose.
As the gang follows the missing girl’s trail, danger turns up on all fronts. A vicious stranger threatens Celia’s family. Celia’s nightmares–about a shadowy, ominous villain–get worse. And a new ghost has appeared: beautiful Angelica, who shares a past with Luc.
It will take all of Celia’s will and wit, and the faith of her friends, to solve an unspeakable crime. And no matter which path Celia takes, she will discover that sometimes the past can come back to haunt you.
Review by Nara
Thank you to Coliloquy for sending me a copy of Post Mortem for review. In no way did this affect my opinion of the book.
Like Dead Letter Office, Post Mortem was written as an "active fiction" title, i.e. it was choose your own adventure. So again, I'll only be reviewing for my own path. I think there were quite a few more choices to make in this one compared to Dead Letter Office, so don't be surprised if you encounter something in the book that I haven't talked about in the review, or if you read the book and don't see the things that are mentioned in the review.
I found that Post Mortem had a stronger mystery aspect than Dead Letter Office and was therefore more engaging and, in my opinion, much better (and, you know, considering how good Dead Letter Office was, that should give you an idea of how good Post Mortem is...). I really liked the idea of weaving the past and present through the enchanted letters. The one problem I had, though, was that I'm just so damn indecisive that I spent at least five minutes at each choice deliberating which path I should take. Even after finally choosing a path, I'd end up being like:
And ARGH! The choosing between love interests! Kira, how could you do this to me again!? MULTIPLE TIMES IN THE ONE BOOK! The decisions are just so hard! *breaks down sobbing in the corner* Donovan, Luc, Sloan, Donovan, Luc, Sloan....
Further character development is done in Post Mortem, especially of Celia (and by the way, damn, girl, you have some sharp instincts). Many of the supporting characters are also quite well developed, including Sloan, Celia's mother, and even the really minor characters that appear only a few times are surprisingly memorable. No characters are annoying or unnecessary, and I disliked only those characters that I was supposed to dislike i.e. the villain (whose name I'm not going to say due to fear of spoilers). I found it quite admirable how the male characters aren't all "you're a girl, Celia, so you shouldn't go after killers/be the first one to go into a dark tunnel" etc. and actually stand back and let her do her thing without being annoyingly overprotective.
Post Mortem has a very fast pace, and is plot driven (as a mystery should be). It's a very rich, layered story, with various interesting subplots which engage you just as much as the overlying main plot. So many more questions are raised at the end of the book- meaning that I'm certainly not satisfied and will be eagerly awaiting the release of the next book in the series (assuming there is one). And really, there better be one, because a mysterious new character was introduced at the end of Post Mortem, and if we don't get to find out who he is, I will be very upset.
By the way, if you haven't started the series yet, there will be a giveaway here at Looking for the Panacea on the 24th of April where the complete series (Book 1 and 2) will be given away! Woohoo!
Ratings
Overall: 9/10
Plot: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 3/5
I've never heard of a book where you can choose different outcomes. I'll have to give this a go sometime. Nice to see you enjoyed it. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's a really interesting and fun way of doing it, don't you think? Even though the decisions were really hard haha :)
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