31450580.jpgBased on the premise, I thought I'd really enjoy Bad Girl Gone. Well--I knew I'd have a n issue with the "she's blatantly dead why can't she tell" part of it, but the rest of it I fully expected to enjoy.

Sixteen year-old Echo Stone awakens in a cold sweat in a dark room, having no idea where she is or how she got there. But she soon finds out she’s in Middle House, an orphanage filled with mysteriously troubled kids.

There’s just one problem: she’s not an orphan. Her parents are very much alive.

She explains this to everyone, but no one will listen. After befriending a sympathetic (and handsome) boy, Echo is able to escape Middle House and rush home, only to discover it sealed off by crime scene tape and covered in the evidence of a terrible and violent crime. As Echo grapples with this world-shattering information, she spots her parents driving by and rushes to flag them down. Standing in the middle of street, waving her arms to get their attention, her parents’ car drives right through her.

She was right. Her parents are alive—but she’s not.

She’s a ghost, just like all the other denizens of Middle House. Desperate to somehow get her life back and reconnect with her still-alive boyfriend, Echo embarks on a quest to solve her own murder. As the list of suspects grows, the quest evolves into a journey of self-discovery in which she learns she wasn’t quite the girl she thought she was. In a twist of fate, she’s presented with one last chance to reclaim her life and must make a decision which will either haunt her or bless her forever.­­­­
Echo is obnoxious and self-centered. I'm all for something focusing personal development but I couldn't make it far enough to watch her learn from her mistakes.

True to books I can't stand--a love triangle is featured prominently. Echo loved Andy when she was alive. They even had obnoxiously disgusting nicknames for each other: rabbit and wolfie. Once Echo died, she fell for Cole. Because he's super hot. Then she gets incredibly jealous when Andy is eyeballed by a new--living--girl and rushes to kiss Cole. And I wanted to hurl. Echo is literally every stereotype about teenage girls all rolled into one and it annoyed me to no end.

Everyone lacked a genuine personality and Echo's mind reading power made her troubles too easy to get through.
REVIEW WILL BE LIVE AUGUST 8th, 2017

I recieved a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Eileen 'Echo' Stone was a character I just couldn't find myself getting behind. The idea of the story was interesting to me, but the actual execution left a lot to be desired in my eyes.
Echo seemed to be the stereotypical girl next door turns bad girl, but she doesn't remember all of this. I kind of enjoyed her not knowing what had happened, I liked how she acted a lot more than I did after she started to remember. Oh and don't even get me started on the dead/dead/living love triangle. It didn't do anything for the characters involved except give me a reason to hate the ending. There were a few questions I had at the end such as what happened to Lucy but more importantly what affects who gets what "power"? Some made sense, e.g. being able to freeze things, but powers like Echo's own were clearly just for convenience.
1/5 stars.

The girl wakes up in Middle House, house for orphans, the problem is her parents are alive, and nobody listens to her. One day she is able to go back to her house and is convinced that she won't return back. She find her parents and crime scene in her house. Her parents aren't dead, she is.

I was really intrigued by the premise, it is really interesting and unique. But I didn't like the writing style, I just could not connect to the character or the plot line.

I loved the idea of this one but there were some parts on this story that I didn't like a lot.Also the main character was one more issue and I couldn't be so into the story.

I'm not going to talk about the plot, as it would spoil your read of this book.
Not my usual sort of fare, but I have to say, a good read. I must admit, to begin with I had no idea where the story was going, but it kept me interested and reading. Fascinating idea, and look forward to reading the next book (I hope after that ending, there is one!)

Having received a pre-view copy of this book for review, it was like a box of candy. It didn’t last more than a day or two. I ate it up. Echo finds herself in an orphanage. How she came to be in this orphanage is Echo’s to solve, and ...can she can find a way out? The reader goes on this mysterious, nightmare passage until both author and reader realizes there is only one way out. Great read. Don’t miss it! It’s worth planning ahead for.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this. The whole book could have been written over the course of about 30 pages, and while it tried to become a mystery, it didn't introduce everyone soon enough, and by the time we figured out who the villain was, it had been told to us.

~1/5~ (Review to be posted on Goodreads mid to late July 2017)

The single star is only there because I saw a dash of potential in this book, and Goodreads doesn’t allow 0/5 stars. However, the thing is, a ton of stuff was extremely messed up in Bad Girl Gone, and it’s all overwhelmingly cringeworthy.

Originally, I wanted to read this ARC pretty badly, based on the description and synopsis, but once I started reading, everything just plummeted.

Let’s get started then.

Romance played too large of a role in Bad Girl Gone, and even then, it was like a penguin trying to fly. You’d expect them to, since they’re birds and all, but it’s a more or less a fail no matter how hard they slide off slopes. Translation: some level of romance was inevitable, but

The love triangle between the main character and her interests was the worst thing ever, honestly. I loathed it, because everything between Echo and Cole was just so forced and unnatural, and Echo’s relationship with Andy was disgusting to me. For goodness sake, when Echo was prepping Dani for the date, she practically forced her to wear what he’d like on her, which she knew because she wore everything for him. I quote, from Echo’s thoughts about Dani’s appearance, “She was doing everything wrong!” What. The. Heck. Is. Wrong. With. Echo.

I can’t even say who would’ve been better with who because all the characters lacked depth. They just had basic roles that were marginally satisfied.

Even as Echo’s relationship with Cole was progressing(?), she was all “Andy, my boyfriend *heart eyes*, and she just kept leading him on and on, so no, I didn’t feel anything when Echo and her guy promise to love each other forever, and yes, I’m incredibly disgusted given the context of said promises. Gag (you’ll understand if you’ve read the book, otherwise, don’t bother).

Sigh. The whole gist of it, Bad Girl Gone was incredibly disappointing and a terrible book with shallow characters, and this novel is a tragic piece of work that could’ve been so much better (don’t mean to be harsh, it’s just a bummer, that’s all).

Nevertheless, thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

One of my favorite tear-jerking anime is Angel Beats! It's about kids who go to a place after death like a school where they have to accept their deaths and then be reborn (you know, Hinduism). Anyway, they don't remember much about their previous life. at first. But eventually, they do. And this book was a carbon copy of Angel Beats!

Now, of course, there are some differences. I won't list all the similarities because they're countless but executed in a very bad way. Echo, the main character, wasn't exactly a good girl like Otonashi in Angel Beats who is a decent person and a boy. I prayed it won't end in a similar way but of course, it did.

Echo wakes up in a dark room in what is called the Middle house. She learns later that she is there because she was murdered. All the children of the house are there for the same reason. Everyone has a superpower. They want to revenge their deaths so they can reborn. You know Karma. They're ghosts who do abnormal stuff to a point of killing their murders to rest and move on.

As you can see, this is Angel Beats mixed with Miss P's house for Peculiar children and Ghostbusters. Wow mixing three different cultures. It was bad.

Echo (I hate her name, stupid reason to give her this nickname) is so annoying and self-centered. The point of this book is that she doesn't stay the same person by the end well she didn't but I didn't like her nonetheless. I actually wanted to use some quotations from this book to show you why I didn't like the book. But since it's an arc and it might be edited, I might add them when the final copy is released but still, that doesn't explain the use of over 320 exclamation marks in a 250 pages book.

So before her death, she used to love this person called Andy (he called her rabbit and she called him wolfie and oh my God the cringe). After her death, she starts falling for a guy named Cole. He's super hot. It was too much of insta-love for me. Because you see, she starts thinking a lot about him only a day or two after her death. And she's loved Andy, she doesn't want him to be with anyone else. She gets super jealous from this girl who has a crush on her boyfriend and after 2 minutes, she starts kissing Cole. Seriously? So yeah this love-triangle was total non-sense.

I do not approve what the kids are doing. I liked that in Angel Beats they tried to deal with their situation and accept it but here? It was a mess. The characters lacked a real personality. When she first arrived, you get the idea that there were so many people there but then she makes friends and we know nothing about the rest. Also, Echo's power helped the plot too much. Where's the mystery here if she can just enter any person's thoughts?!

I didn't like this book, at least, I finished in less than 2.5 hours so it wasn't a real waste of time. I really wanted to give it a chance but no, sorry.

An unoriginal ghost story where the girl doesn't realize she's a ghost at first, et cetera. If you're going to do this over again, please at least make it fresh and snappy.

I loved the whole idea of this and do think that the mystery was unraveled well but, the romance aspect was unnecessary and put a bit of a downer on my enjoyment. If that was taken out this could have been such a good book.

Thanks, NetGalley and St Martins Pres for the opportunity to read this delightful book in exchange of an unbiased honest review.
Even though this is most a YA book, it captivated me the same way that Twilight and Fallen did. It’s a light easy read for older adults.
Echo wakes up i9n Middle house, that she soon discovers is an orphanage for (I would say teenagers) who have been murdered (each seems to have some sort of paranormal power). They are trapped there till that have ‘closure’ on how they died, by seeking out and taking revenge on those that caused their early demise.
Echo meets a dashing spirit in the ‘orphanage’ who she starts to have develop deep affection for, she is torn as she still has unfinished business with the boy she was with when she was still breathing.
Now I don’t want to give too much away but wouldn’t it be fantastic if such a place excited and killers were brought to justice by their victims.

One where I liked the concept far more than the execution. THe everyday "life" of teen ghosts is intriguing, especially teens who have been murdered. Having to come to terms with all they have lost while seeking justice - there's a lot of potential there. But that potential is never fully realized. Instead of complex characters looking for answers in emotionally complex scenarios we have a series of revenge fantasies carried out by flat characters complicated by bizarre happenings. The various ghost powers don't always make sense. Some are tied to their manner of death, others are random.

2 Stars.

Echo Stone is a ghost, though at first she doesn’t know it. She wakes up in an orphanage, called Middle House, after being murdered, surrounded by others just like her. She is confused, having no idea how she got there. All she wants is to find her parents and when she does, they cannot see her and she realizes the truth. While residing in Middle House, Echo connects with Cole, another “orphan” who resides there, while also trying to reconnect with her old boyfriend who is still very much alive, creating a very odd love triangle. After realizing that she is dead and did not die of natural causes, Echo is determined to find out what happened to her. She therefore begins investigating her own death, so that she can move on, one way or another.

Unfortunately, this book just did not work for me. Though the novel was coined as mystery, the author, Temple Matthews, inserted a teenage love triangle with two ghosts and a boy who was very much alive, which just did not work, in my opinion. When all was said and done, the truth behind what happened to Echo wasn’t all that shocking. Further, characters didn’t mesh well, and the story didn’t flow, thus all in all, this book was somewhat lackluster.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Temple Matthews for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Published on NetGalley and Goodreads on 3/16/17.

*Will be published on Amazon on 8/8/17.

There is something about being in between worlds, something that ought to make sense, create peace and resolve a dilemma, but this is not going to be a smooth run for Echo.

Echo, a sixteen year old girl, wakes up in a dark room. She tries to call out for her parents and boyfriend but no one comes to her aid. She demands to go home, but realizes there's no way she would ever do that, because she is in Middle House, an Orphanage of sorts for kids who are murdered and she is a ghost.

I had a love-hate relationship with this book
I barely made it through the first two chapters due to the frustration I felt. I was so eager to know where Echo was and what was happening that I almost gave up on the book.

The story then took a turn, and Echo started to settle in at first, keen to investigate her murder and the reason that led to her death.
The interplay between the world of the living and the dead was not as convincing, save for her visit back to school, now that was epic! Her friends and classmates were typical teens; jealous hypocrites and I particularly enjoyed their being haunted. I wonder what that says about me.

For a proof copy, I'm grateful to Netgalley for giving me an arc, in exchange for an honest review. It was awfully cool of the author to use aspects of life and awakening as chapter titles. I loved Confessions and Awakening.

The characters are your typical teens and they go through the motions of life struggling to make right decisions, maintain friendships and you have a little bit of romance to remind you of what first love is like. I was drawn to one character in particular, Darby, and I wish there was more to her.

I'll be on the lookout for more books by Temple Matthews, it'd be great to read more works by him.

Ugh, this book was such a miss for me. I read the blurb and got so excited but I think that just made the let down even worse.

Echo is supposedly a bad girl. We get that from the title. I didn't realise that she would be a total self-absorbed selfish jerk. The one time she shows an inch of caring about other people is in the last pages (which, incidentally, felt like a cop out of an ending.)

This book really reinforces the stereotype of needing love. When Echo finds herself dead, she is sad because she misses her boyfriend, her one and only true love that she cannot live without. Well, Echo, you're dead. And no one cares. But then she meets this handsome stranger, and for a moment, it seems like she's moved on because she's falling in love with him. But no. She goes back to the other boy and tries to screw up his life by moaning at him. Ohmygoodness. I want to slap her and get her priorities into check.

The ultimate way Echo died was just eh. I like thrillers. I like mysteries. I like well developed plots that drop hints every few pages about what might have happened so that I come up with theories that get proved wrong and right. This? None of that. None of the above. The way Echo died was ultimately weird and creepy. It would have been less weird and creepy if it had been set up properly and introduce sensitively, but it felt like maybe the author realised the book needed something interesting in it. Ugh. Really insensitive handling of a topic that I really didn't buy happening.

Characters were developed strangely. The director of the home had a sad back story that kind of took over for a chapter, but it was really creepy and again gave no thoughtful discussion to a valuable topic. Don't get me started on Cole and instalove because I'll rant for years. Other characters simply seemed to be cute ideas the author had but didn't feel like expanding into real characters.

I'm really disappointed by this book--I was so excited and I generally love most books from this publisher. I definitely would have stopped reading around 35% if I hadn't been reading to review; even then, I had to skim a lot of it to get through all the moaning and complaining.

Teenage girls should not read this; all it will do is reinforce the idea that they need love to be happy. I do not recommend.

This book was a little different than what I have read in the past. I liked the mystery of trying to figure out the murder as well as going along with Echo to figure out who she really was when she was alive. Imagine waking up in an orphanage and not knowing what happened, not being able to access the only memories that will tell you what happened. I did find the insta-love between her and Cole bareable because she had gone through something extremely traumatic and when that happens it’s only natural to seek solice and comfort in someone else. It was a little slow but all in all it was a decent read.


I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars.

Will update with links to where I posted my review online closer to the release date. (Final review might change slightly but will have the same basic message).

This book was not what I expected. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. That being said, I absolutely LOVED this story! I was gripped from the first page and couldn't wait to keep reading it until I finished. The ragtag group of ghosts attached themselves to me and wouldn't let go. I can't wait to read more books from Mathews!

Definitely a solid 5 for me!

I absolutely loved the idea of this book, but in execution it wasn't great. The storyline was there but it wasn't that exciting and didn't really pull me in. With other similar books on the market, I don't really think this measures up. Saying that, this is my personal opinion and I don't think it should discourage you from checking it out if that's what you're in to!

The idea of this book, while nothing new could have been great: a girl wakes up oin a house for kids and wants to get home. She meets a guy called Cole who goes with her and she discovers that her parents don't see her because she is... dead! Omy! she is a ghost! Turns out she hasn't been able to move on because she hasn't died of natural causes but rather been killed. And so have been all the other kids who are on the house with her. And then, all of them proceed to sort of take off their "masks" and show their true selves, that is, their visage when they were killed. And some of them set off to right the wrongs they were inflicted when tey were killed: one of the kids was killed by his own father, for instance.
The book was looking great. And then the investigation on why she died began. And then it began to drag as nothing happened. And then she began kissing Cole one chapter and her alive boyfriend on the following chapter. And more draging. And more nonsense. And more thinking alongside the lines of: "But is there a plot somewhere?". So I called it quits.