Hereafter by Tara Hudson

It's just a typical teen romance. Girl meets boy. Girl helps save boy from watery grave. Girl is dead. Oh, wait, it's not so typical. And I officially hate myself for starting my review like that, but I'm not turning back now.

Amelia was wandering for as long as she remembers. None of the living people noticed her. Every now and then she would have "nightmares," reenactments of what little of her death she remembers. She wakes up thrashing in the river where she drowned. After one nightmare, she realizes that someone else is drowning, a boy. Amelia tries to save him, cheers him on. Surprisingly, he wakes up, and he can see her.

The boy is Joshua, and not only can he see Amelia, he can touch her. She has been totally numb until now, but she starts to be able to feel things, to smell things. More importantly, Amelia starts to remember her life. Joshua, though, gets his own pet ghost to follow him to school one day. I'm not sure whether that was against the rules. People probably thought he looked pretty crazycakes, talking to himself and kissing the empty air, but he's hot so nobody really minds.

Just to complicate things, there are dark forces trying to claim Amelia. A ghost named Eli has been watching her. Eli claims souls, and he's not working for the good guys. He wants Amelia as his new assistant. Further complicating matters, Joshua's grandmother believes that Amelia is an abomination and plans to exorcise her, as well as Eli.

At first, I had a difficult time getting into Hereafter. Once I took a little break from it, and got further into the story, I found myself eager to read more. These stories are always so depressing. Amelia will never be alive again, and it would kind of suck if she actually came back to life somehow, but you still wish Amelia and Josh can have their happy ending, even though they never will. Sorry for the horrible run-on sentence. The pining is what's attractive, the unattainable love. Ultimately, Hereafter is a sweet love story. I liked it, but I occasionally watch repeats of Ghost Whisperer on the Canadian channel, so I may have questionable taste.

I received a copy of Hereafter from Netgalley. It's available now, wherever books are sold.

P.S. I mostly watch Ghost Whisperer for mocking purposes. It's terrible, but like a car accident and I get so much enjoyment out of how long it takes her to figure out what the damn ghosts want.