Girl Meets Ghost

Daniella, the insistent and annoying ghost of a High School gymnast, demands Kendall's attention to help her "move on". Kendall would rather be spending her time worrying about a boy she has a crush on, Brandon, and her less than stellar math grades. Kendall's best friend Ellie is apparently in love with Brandon's unpredictable friend, Kyle, and Brandon keeps running into Kendall doing strange things like talking to herself (actually to ghosts) and digging in a graveyard. The ghost of Brandon's mom begins haunting Kendall and apparently warning her off of Brandon, though they have started dating. Kendall tries to convince Daniella's friend, Jen, to unwittingly help her solve the mystery of Daniella's haunting while Kendall is also worrying about the relationship between her dad and his friend Cindy. Kendall discovers that Daniella and Jen fought over a boy that Jen had dated first and that Jen's anger leads her to refuse Daniella a ride to a gymnastics meet. Daniella takes an ill-fated bus and dies, leaving Jen feeling responsible. Kendall, claiming to be a friend of Daniella's, mediates between the ghost and Jen and Daniella is able to move on when Jen believes that Daniella does not blame her.

Kendall is visited by Lyra, the ghost of a fashionable teen who wanted to be a scientist, while the ghost's mother, struggling with depression following her daughter's death, is quickly going bankrupt and about to lose her business (an understaffed and under-equipped "spa"). Meanwhile, Kendall learns that Brandon's mother—whose ghost is now haunting her with increasing force—was friends in school with Kendall's absent mother. While apple picking with her father, Cindy, and Brandon, Kendall's father unexpectedly proposes to Cindy in public by giving her a "promise ring", which throws Kendall's home-life into turmoil. To make matters worse, things with Brandon are not going that well as a potential love interest enters the scene at school just as Kendall is behaving increasingly erratic, and Ellie is increasingly suspicious that Kendall is hiding something.

When helping a ghost named Lyra, Kendall started hanging with a boy named Micah, who is Lyra's brother. Now, her own boyfriend and her best friend won't even talk to her anymore. On top of that, her dad is getting serious with his girlfriend, Cindy, and Kendall has to help the ghost of her archenemy's sister, Lily. Kendall could not take it anymore! So, Kendall decides it's time to go see her mother (who ran away from Kendall when she was a baby) to find answers on this "seeing ghosts" thing. Hopefully, her mom will know the truth, or things will get a lot more worse.

Reviewers found this first installment in the nascent series intriguing and fun. Kirkus Reviews, for example, claims "Barnholdt keeps the narrative light and her characters chirpy. Kendall might get discouraged, but she's always ready to bounce back with a new hairstyle or a spiffy outfit. Much of the comedy comes from Kendall's attempts to explain her increasingly outlandish actions as she tries to hide the truth about her ghosts. Funny and bubbly"[2] while Publishers Weekly claims "Barnholdt provides steady suspense and approaches dark topics with a refreshing dose of levity".[3] Lana Barnes from The Horn Book Guide gave the book a four out of six rating, feeling the author's tween voice is genuine, but the separate plot lines in the novel "lack a solid connection."[4]

• 2013 in literature
• Children's Literature

• Bernstein, Allison and Shelley Glantz. Review. Library Media Connection. Aug/Sep 2013 (32.1): p. 66.