A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend Review

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner

Publisher: Dial

Release date: June 10, 2010

Source: Publisher

For months, Cass Meyer has heard her best friend Julia, a wannabe Broadway composer, whispering about a top-secret project. Then Julia is killed in a sudden car accident, and while Cass is still reeling from her death, Julia’s boyfriend and her other drama friends make it their mission to bring to fruition the nearly-completed secret project: a musical about an orphaned ninja princess entitled Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad.

Cass isn’t one of the drama people. She doesn’t feel at home with Julia’s drama friends, and she doesn’t see a place for her in the play. Things only get worse when she finds out that Heather Galloway, the girl who made her miserable all through middle school, has been cast as the ninja princess.

Cass can’t take a summer of swallowing her pride and painting sets, so she decides to follow her original plan for a cross-country road trip with Julia. Even if she has a touring bicycle instead of a driver’s license, and even if Julia’s ashes are coming along in Tupperware.

Review:

Going in to A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend I really had no idea what to expect. I'd read reviews on both sides of the spectrum- 1 star and 5 stars. I enjoyed this, but not as much as I had hoped.

The beginning was very slow getting into, the constant flipping back and forth between "Then" and "Now" was interesting and helped the reader understand what was going on better, but I sometimes had to flip back to the chapter heading to remind myself whether I was reading about the past or present.

Cass was a likable main character, and readers could understand what she was going through. Her grief was apparent and shewas a very strong willed character. Some of the other characters felt a little flat and I really would have liked to know more about Julia, especially since she played such a key role in the novel. The other characters were all very original and unique and I especially liked reading about "The Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad", that was such an awesome part of the novel.

GLBT fiction is something I haven't had much of an opportunity to read, so I'm glad I had a chance to read A Love Story. Cass and Heather's relationship was very well developed and believable and I liked how it grew throughout the whole novel.

The road trip was a little confusing, but a nice sub-plot and made Cass's feelings for Julia all the more real. Cass met a lot of different people on this trip and discovered who she really was. The ending was awesome and tied everything together nicely.

Overall, I liked and disliked this novel. Cass was a great main character, but some parts of the novel fell a little flat for me. A Love Story was an intriguing concept and I'm looking forward to reading more by Emily Horner. Also, don't be put off from reading this by my review, I know a lot of other people who have really enjoyed it!

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars