Monday, October 4, 2010

Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

Summary:

Restless souls and empty hearts.

Brooklyn can’t sleep. Her boyfriend, Lucca died a year ago, and now their friend Gabe has died of an overdose. Every time she closes her eyes, Gabe's ghost is there, waiting for her. She has no idea what he wants or why it isn't Lucca chasing her through her dreams.

Nico can’t stop. He’s always running, trying so hard not to feel the pain of missing Lucca. But when he begins receiving messages from his dead brother, telling him to help Brooklyn, emotions come crashing to the surface.

As the nightmares escalate and the messages become relentless, Nico reaches out to Brooklyn. But neither of them can admit that they're being haunted. Until they learn to let each other in, not one soul will be able to rest. (from Goodreads)

Review:

Whenever I hear this title, I simultaneously think of the movie Chasing Liberty and Brooklyn, the town. For most the book, I was imagining Brooklyn walking around Brooklyn, until I realized that the title refers to her name, and only her name. So there was some confusion with that, but overall I liked Chasing Brooklyn. I didn't think it was amazing, but it was a pretty decent novel. Like the rest of Lisa Schroeder's work, Chasing Brooklyn is written in verse, which I think works well. One, because Lisa Schroeder is actually good at writing verse, and two, because the format works with the overall theme, that is - lost love and the supernatural. I liked that this was a ghost story without falling into the horror genre. I like scary things, but this actually seemed real, like it could happen to someone. The ghostly encounters were subtle, but still very spooky. I thought the ending was a tad corny, but it was cute and wrapped up nicely. I liked watching Brooklyn evolve and develop throughout the story and the fact that Nico helped her with it. He's a really good guy, that Nico. Whenever I read good verse, I'm always amazed that so much could happen using so few words. It takes a great writer to do that. Even though Chasing Brooklyn wasn't my favorite novel ever, it was still a good read and it was nice to see some well-written verse.

7 out of 10.

FTC: I borrowed this from my library.

2010/Simon Pulse/432 pages

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