Review: Possessions - Nancy Holder

Where I got it: Inter-library loan
Rating: 3.5 stars
Cover Rating: 2.5 stars (eh... I don't like how shiny, shiny the girl looks. This cover is simply not creepy enough.)
Genre: Young Adult
Publication Date: September 3, 2009
Publisher: Razorbill
Page Count: 296 p. 

After Lindsay's big breakdown she decides to get out of San Diego and out of her old life. She decides to go to boarding school in upstate California. As soon as she arrives however she witnesses something she can't explain. As all the unexplainable things start to add up, Lindsay knows something has got to give. What she doesn't realize is that maybe what's going on may have less to do with the present and more to do with something grizzly in Marlwood's past. Now she has to fight to figure out who she can trust as spirits that had remained dormant are back to seek revenge.


I did not like this book at first. There was too much description. I know I always usual love descriptions, but at times there was just too much. "My gaze rested on a thin girl with a retro beehive and large hoop earrings, wearing a charcoal-gray sweater that was even baggier than my sweatshirt, a wrap-around indigo sarong, then another one of wheat-colored fabric over that, leggings, and some kind of floppy boots." Now this is a great description and I can vividly picture the girl but when every sentence is like this it gets to be too much and there is very little room for imaginative freedom. So you do have a very visual setting, but sometimes I think it goes above and beyond. Another thing that was kind of odd was Lindsay and Julie's (her dorm-mate)friendship. Now, I have never shared a room with someone I didn't know, so maybe I am just blind to this. It just seemed like all of a sudden they both decided to be best friends and then they were. Okay for seven-year-olds, a little strange if you are fifteen. That's how I feel at least. I wish something had happened to make them bond into "best friends", late night tell-all, hanging out more, something. Still they seemed to get on well enough to be friends if not "best friends". So, like I said I did not like this book at first, maybe I was moody when I started it or whatever. Nearer the second half however, I started to really enjoy this book and even get a bit creeped out. They are some spooky things going on at Marlwood and I am glad I don't have to be there. At times I really admire Lindsay's bravery/stupidity when she does things like go in the creepy attic. Not something I see myself doing especially after all the other spookiness going on. There was an interesting crush-y fling thing with a gorgeous (of course, have you noticed there are rarely sub-par looking guys in books) boy from across the lake. I don't want to spoil this too much but I am certainly looking forward to cracking open my ARC of book #2 and finding out what happens next. This book ended with quite the "oooooo I want to know what happens next" moment.

First Line:
"Fog had crawled up the mountain, like a wounded animal on pine-tree claws, and bled all over the campus."


Favorite Line:
 "The slit grew, as if someone--Mandy--had carved a jack-o'-lantern mouth into its dead-white skin."