Book Review

The Life + Death Parade Review

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The Life + Death Parade by Eliza Wass

One year ago, Kitty’s boyfriend Nikki Bramley visited a psychic who told him he had no future. Now, he’s dead.

With the Bramley family grieving in separate corners of their home, Kitty sets out to find the psychic who read Nikki his fate. Instead she finds Roan, an enigmatic boy posing as a medium who belongs to the Life and Death Parade–a group of supposed charlatans that explore, and exploit, the thin veil between this world and the next. A group whose members include the psychic… and Kitty’s late mother.

Desperate to learn more about the group and their connection to Nikki, Kitty convinces Roan to return to the Bramley house with her and secures a position for him within the household. Roan quickly ingratiates himself with the Bramleys, and soon enough it seems like everyone is ready to move on. Kitty, however, increasingly suspects Roan knows more about Nikki than he’s letting on. And when they finally locate the Life and Death Parade, and the psychic who made that fateful prophecy to Nikki, Kitty uncovers a secret about Roan that changes everything.

From rising star Eliza Wass comes a sophisticated, mesmerizing meditation on the depths of grief and the magic of faith. After all, it only works if you believe it.

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20pxMoonKestrel Logo2 20px

This was a very weird one to read. It felt unhinged, unstable, as if it wasn’t sure of where the story wanted to go and if there was a story at all.

The characters all feel forced and too fake (it’s not even that they feel like far from reach can’t relate to them, it is more that they are just there to fulfill a role in the plot but they never really are fleshed out).

Even Nikki, who is Kitty’s love interest and basically the main topic of the whole book (there’s is SO much about him) felt vague and odd.

Won’t spoil it but I have to say I finished and felt I didn’t know what I had read and it just left me very unsatisfied, as if there shoudl’ve been a few more editing parts of it, and this was only a draft where an info/idea/plot dump had happened. (Sorry, I don’t usually write reviews like this one but I seriously tried to like this book, being Mexican, books where life & death are the topics intrigue me which is why I got this one, but it did nothing for me).

Moon Recommends

Go watch Coco or The Book of Life and have some fun if you’re into cute death. Or you can read Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and learn about what happens once someone dies and crematoriums (I thoroughly enjoyed it).

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