Let's Try This Reviewing Thing: The Dead Girls Detective Agency, by Suzy Cox

(Don't want to read the whole spiel? Go down to the bottom for a one-sentence summary of my review.)

I had the opportunity to read this book yesterday, mainly because it’s a little lighter than the stories I usually read. I mean, it’s called Dead Girls Detective Agency, so I knew it would be more of a fluff book aimed at teenage girls who have an hour or two to kill and aren’t interested in getting too deep with plot or characters. The cover certainly reflects that:

Smiling blond girl (who looks nothing like the main character is described), posing and looking pretty? Nothing dramatic or heart-wrenching here, folks.

Which isn’t necessarily bad, of course. Everybody likes a goofy story even now and then, and I’m not exception. Especially when it has an interesting plot, like this one does.

Pop quiz: What would you do if you had to solve your own murder to get anywhere in death?

Maybe if I hadn’t slept through my alarm, slammed into Kristin—my high school’s reigning mean girl—or stepped into a puddle, destroying my mom’s new DVF boots (which I borrowed without asking), I wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I wouldn’t have been pushed in front of that arriving train. But it did, and I was.

When I came to, I was informed by a group of girls that I’m dead. And that because I died under mysterious circumstances, I can’t pass straight over to the Other Side. But at least I’m not alone. Meet the Dead Girls Detective Agency: Nancy, Lorna, and Tess—not to mention Edison, the really cute if slightly hostile bad boy. Apparently, the only way out of limbo is to figure out who killed me, or I’ll have to spend eternity playing Nancy Drew. Considering I was fairly invisible in life, who could hate me enough to want me dead? And what if my murderer is someone I never would expect?

When you die, you have to solve your own murder? That sounds intriguing, though strange. Plus, the summary gives you an idea of what the main character is like from the way she describes things, and I like the sassy personality. I’m not much into mysteries, but I read this for kicks.

For what it was, this book was pretty good. It had a nice engaging plot that kept me interested in who the main character’s murderer was, and the characters, while bland, were enjoyable. The ghostly limbo was certainly interesting to read about, and the shenanigans the girls get into while trying to find the killer are just on the right side of too-embarrassing-to-read funny. Unfortunately, the main character doesn’t have nearly as much spunk as the book’s summary would suggest, but she’s not a cardboard character.

One thing I did find disappointing is how the main character deals with her death. She had a loving family, a best friend, and a boyfriend before she died, but when she dies all she focuses on is her boyfriend and how he starts hooking up with all the girls before she’s even cold in her grave. Her parents and her best friend legitimately miss her, but you don’t see enough of them to get any more about them than that. The main character barely feels sad about being parted with them—all she focuses on is her liar of a boyfriend and solving her murder.

And speaking of boyfriends, the romance in this is rather sub-par. I knew it was going to be somewhat cheesy and cliché when the summary tells us the romance is between the main character and “Edison, the really cute if slightly hostile bad boy.” But I didn’t think it would be so scarce. They have several scenes together (at least they don’t look at each other once and fall in love) where Edison pretty much acts like a reluctantly helpful jerk, and then for seemingly no reason at all he suddenly likes her. I can tell the author tried to make the transition from I-don’t-like-her to yeah-I-sort-of-like-her look natural, but it just came off as really awkward and it intruded with the plot being told. Honestly, I think this would be a  lot better if the love interest factor was taken out entirely.

There was a lot of ambiguity about the world itself and the rules that people have to play by in them, so I assume there’s a sequel in the future somewhere. However, I’m not going to hunt it down to just read it. For a fluff read, it was an okay book, but nothing extraordinary. I give it a five out of ten.

Tl;dr: This is a decent book if you’re looking for a light read, but it doesn’t have anything too investing plot- or character-wise, and there are definitely better things out there to read.