Book Review: Possessions by Nancy Holder

Overall:1.5
Pages: 320
Spoilers: Medium
Summary from Goodreads:

The It Girl meets The Exorcist in this chilling, haunted boarding school tale.

New-girl Lindsay discovers all is not right at the prestigious Marlwood Academy for Girls. Ethereal, popular Mandy and her clique are plotting something dangerous. Lindsay overhears them performing strange rituals, and sees their eyes turn black. It doesn't help that the school itself is totally eerie, with ancient, dilapidated buildings tucked into the Northern California woods, a thick white fog swirling through campus. There are hidden passageways, odd reflections in the windows at night, and scariest of all is the vast lake rumored to have captured the ghost of a girl who drowned many years ago. 


What Lindsay doesn't yet realize is that Mandy and her cohorts are becoming possessed by spirits who have haunted the school for two hundred years. Spirits who want someone dead... And that someone is Lindsay.

My Review:


The writng:

The writing is fine. Nothing bad to say about it.

The Plot:


I really wanted to like this book. I have read her Wicked series and didn't like it. But after I purchased this without realizing who the author was I decided to go in with an open mind and hope it was as good as it's AMAZING cover. However it wasn't. It was not original or very interesting. Lindsay goes to a boarding school after a breakdown (that is never fully explained or explored) to start over new. As it turns out her new school is haunted and used to be an asylum for girls in the late 1800s. One super vengeful ghost possesses the most popular girl in school, Mandy. On top of being possessed Mandy has to also find other girls that can be possessed so the other ghosts can have bodies and get their revenge on who killed them, all this in exchange for helping Mandy's brother. Help him do what exactly? I have no idea, it has something to do with getting his crazy ass out of "rehab." (Plus he and Mandy are apparently having an incestuous relationship.This doesn't bother me. I am a fan of Supernatural after all.) However none of this comes to light until the last little bit. The bulk of the book is spent on parties with Mandy, pranks, wondering why the hell Mandy is so weird, and having feelings for Mandy's mega hot boyfriend, Troy.

The story trudges on with Lindsay being confused and ignoring a ghost face that she sees everywhere, a voice inside of her telling her what to do, and the weird shit that keeps happening. I am sorry but if a ghost face kept popping up everywhere and I saw unlikely companions of Mandy's acting strange with black eyes and speaking in different accents, I would book it the hell out of there. But not Lindsay. No she has to stay to help Julie, her roommate, for some ungodly reason. Excuse me but you do not know her, and she keeps acting like a bitch. You do not have to save her stupid ass because you've known her a month and she's your "best friend."  Then we find out that, surprise surprise, Lindsay is being possessed by the ghost the bitch ghosts want revenge on. So what does Lindsay's stupid ass do? Follows the bitch ghosts into the woods. You are a dumb ass and deserve to be lit on fire by those bitch ghosts, which is how Lindsay's ghost apparently killed the bitch ghosts.  And all of this could have been avoided if she had a sassy gay friend.



Anyway it ends on a cliff hanger so you'll want to pick up the next book and see what happens. Only problem is I have no inclination of picking up the next book. Lindsay is aggravating, this plot is thin, the pacing is slow, and I don't want to read another horror book about whiny bitch ghosts.

Positive:

Parts of it were a bit creepy. I was reading about the face in the reflection and looked up and thought I saw a ghost face in my tv. Turns out that it was just my sock. And Rose was hilarious. There was no insta-love. Insta-lust? Yes. But not "I've just seen you now I want to marry you and have your babies."


Overall: