#Review - The Lonely Dead by April Henry #YA #Mystery

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Release Date: January 29, 2019
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Mysteries

A killer is on the loose, and only one girl has the power to find him. But in this genre-bending YA thriller, she must first manage to avoid becoming a target herself.

For Adele, the dead aren’t really dead. She can see them and even talk to them. But she’s spent years denying her gift. When she encounters her ex best friend Tori in a shallow grave in the woods and realizes that Tori is actually dead -- that gift turns into a curse. Without an alibi, Adele becomes the prime suspect in Tori’s murder. She must work with Tori’s ghost to find the real killer. But what if the killer finds Adele first?

Master mystery-write April Henry adds a chilling paranormal twist to this incredibly suspenseful young adult novel. 

 

The Sixth Sense meets The Girl on the Train in this fast-paced murder mystery with a paranormal twist. April Henry weaves another edge-of-your-seat murder mystery—this time with a paranormal twist. For seventeen-year-old Adele Vanderarde, the dead aren’t really dead. She can see them and even talk to them. Adele inherited the ability to see, and converse with ghosts, human and animal, from her mother and grandmother. The problem lies with her own grandfather who she lives with due to the fact that both of her parents are deceased. 

 

Long story short, as a child, Adele was diagnosed with schizophrenia by quack doctors who are only interested in putting children on medication which stymies their ability to function, carry out conversations, and have actual friends after she was caught talking to a ghost in a bathroom during a school trip. Quack doctor, with urging from her grandfather, put her on medication to make her grandfather feel better about the fact that his own wife and daughter could also see and talk to ghosts which he has refused to accept or get over. 

She’s been on medication for schizophrenia for years. But when she  goes several weeks without medication, something wonderful happens. She isn't a walking ghoul who ended up losing her best friend. She is able to raise her hand and participate in class. She is able to attend a party where things go wrong, but at least she was able to leave the house without feeling a cloud over her head. Unfortunately, things get worse for Adele after she realizes that her ex-friend Tori Rasmussen is a murder victim. Before she knows it, the police, the boy next door (Charlie Lauderdale), her fellow students, even her own grandfather, believe that she's the prime suspect.  

The clues are all there. Tori was having a party while her parents weren’t home. Tori caught Adele kissing her boyfriend Luke which lead to a huge fight and break up. Two days later, Adele finds Tori's ghost next to a shallow grave. Adele drank too much at the party and doesn’t remember everything she did and she begins to worry that she might be the murderer. What's worse is that it is apparent that someone is intentionally making it look like Adele is guilty.

*There is a bit of a preaching moment right about here. There is talk about how drinking too much alcohol can lead to black outs. I am one of those who has had black outs while over drinking. In fact, I walked off the pier was visiting Palermo, Sicily. I also passed out face first into my food. This is why I no longer drink.*

This book goes back in time several times. 12 years ago is the first time she learned she had the ability to see the dead when she encountered a dead dog. She learned that she could smell, touch, and talk to them. Her mother told Adele that people just didn't understand their ability and that she needs to be careful. She needs to look to see if the person she sees is fading away, or fuzzy, or has a tether to their head which keeps the ghost in the place where they died or were buried. 7 years ago, Tori saw a dead girl while on the Oregon Trail school trip. Thanks to teachers and students seeing her converse with literally nobody, her grandfather decided that medication was the only answer to her problems.

The reason for my rating is that the ending was predictable. This is the sort of mystery where you can literally guess who the killer is right from the start. Adele was an unreliable narrator because you had to actually try to examine whether or not she was a killer because of her own over drinking at the party, and then try to figure out if her own actions from the party forward led to Tori's murder. 

I really felt bad that her grandfather treated her so badly because he didn’t want to acknowledge her gift, or her mother's gift, or even his own wife's gift. When Adele becomes a prime suspect, her grandfather all but disappears from the conversation instead of doing what he could to help her. He would rather treat it as a disease and make her take pills. I also didn't much care for Tori. She's a bitter mean girl who just happened to been murdered but even in death, she can't seem to hold her tongue.

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