Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine

(Goodreads)

Summary from Goodreads - "Me: Lucas Swain--I'm nearly sixteen years old and live in London. I was fairly normal until the night I found Violet. Then everything changed.
The Missing: Dad. He disappeared five years ago. Nobody knows what happened to him, and nobody cares except me. It's enough to drive you crazy.
The Dead: That's Violet . . . in the urn. Speaking of crazy--I know she's trying to tell me something, and I think it's about my father. . . .
A dead lady may not be much to go on, but my dad's out there somewhere, and it's up to me to find out where."

My Rating - 3.5/5 urns (how macabre)
POV - First
Liked - The character growth and depth of Lucas
Favorite Quotes - "Sometimes, when I'm deciding which route to take to, say, the cinema in Camden, I get this feeling like maybe if I choose the wrong route, bad stuff will happen to me. This sort of thinking can make decisions really, really difficult because I'm always wondering what happens to all the choices we decide not to make." Pg. 2

"People give up. We're defeatist and we stop striving or fighting or enjoying things. It doesn't matter what you're talking about - war, work, marriage, democracy. It all fails because everybody gives up trying after a while; we can't help ourselves. And don't ask me to solve it because I'm the worst. I'd escape tomorrow if I could, from every single thing I've always wanted." Pg. 168


I really can't decide how I feel about this book. It was really fantastic in the middle and end parts, but otherwise it was slow. The author portrayed Lucas with a lot of depth, I thought, and I saw a character who was trying to figure himself out, but getting stuck and retreating into who he thought he wanted to be. But I didn't like the lack of description in some parts. I also feel like the author did some telling instead of showing, but sometimes that can be excused. I don't know, some parts of the book felt like they weren't as well-written as other parts. But, despite all of that, I really did like this book.

It took me some time to get really interested in the story, but it picks up after a while. At first, it was hard to understand Lucas's pull towards Violet, but after I found out little things about her it all clicked for me. It was easy to relate to Lucas, someone who was misinterpreted often by others and lost. Lucas's perspective was refreshing, as he wasn't the type of male character that's a jerk or girl-crazy or caught up in silly drama.

This book wasn't super fantastic, but if you're looking for a casual read while waiting for an anticipated book to come out or something, I would try this novel out.