I Text Dead People

March 1, 2015
Thirteen-year-old Anna has just moved into the creepy mansion next to the cemetery and has hopes of making friends in her posh new school.She finds a cellphone that might replace the one she lost, but it only works sporadically, sending her cryptic texts. Meanwhile she meets Millie, a nice girl in school, who warns her about the twin queen bees, Olivia and Eden, who manipulate Anna into doing their homework. Everyone in her new town seems to be rich except Anna's family, though, as long as she continues to do their homework for them, Olivia and Eden tolerate her. But when Lucy, a girl with a delusional crush on a classmate, is accidentally killed in the cemetery, Anna begins receiving texts from her on the phone. Not understanding that she's dead, Lucy demands that Anna help her, haunting her ever more intrusively. Cooper writes with a light style and demonstrates keen insight into the social anxieties of middle schoolers. She occasionally includes her own whimsical line drawings that add to the humorous tone of the book. A really nice plot twist at the end should please readers. Good, ghostly fun. (Paranormal suspense. 9-12)

April 1, 2015

Gr 5-8-When Anna moves to a new town, she hopes that the mansion her mom inherited from an uncle will make life in her snooty new school a bit easier. The hardest part, being phoneless, seems to be solved when she finds a phone on her way to school. Soon life gets a bit crazy with cliques causing trouble at school, a creepy guy following her around, the boy she likes dating someone else, and the dead people texting her to ask for help. With a fast-paced, plot-heavy style, this book careens between high school drama and ghostly intrigue. Cooper attempts to weave in suspense, horror, and quirky humor while creating relatable characters resulting in a fun but slightly scattered novel for tweens. Younger readers will appreciate a sanitized peek into high school relationships that focuses more on predictable relationship conflicts with unpredictable horror lines thrown in to keep the story interesting and fresh. VERDICT None of the novel's content would prevent it from sitting comfortably in an elementary school library where it is sure to attract fans looking for something scary-but not too scary.-Elizabeth Nicolai, Anchorage Public Library, AK

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