When I started “Ballad for a Mad Girl”, I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for. I found it while shuffling through NetGalley and decided why not! It’s not like I had many other unread books lingering on my kindle–what’s one more?

“Ballad for a Mad Girl” tells many stories at once, but all are focused through the lens of Grace Foley, the prankster and risk-taker of her group. Throughout the story, Grace struggles to come to terms with the death of her mother, her newly-changing group of high school friends, and a cold case from twenty three years prior. What’s a high school girl to do except solve two murders and a disappearance, all while failing year twelve?

Overall, I found this book to be a solidly entertaining read, as evidenced by the fact that I read it while I really should not have been reading anything at all. I enjoyed our narrator and the multi-layered time frames, but found that sometimes, the intermingling story lines were just a little too pat for my taste. I’m all for consequences echoing down the decades and generations, but sometimes, everything seems just a little to closely woven together to be truly believable. However, this is a book that prominently features ghosts as a major plot point, so there.

Ballad for a Mad Girl, written by Vikki Wakefield, will be published on 30 November 2017 by Text Publishing. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy!

Ballad for a Mad Girl was an odd book. Good odd. Not Twin Peaks odd, but odd enough for me to stop several times and think, 'um, what?' Grace is almost 18, and at that awkward age where things are changing. School has almost finished, the friendship group that has been solid for as long as she can remember seems to be falling apart, and, her relationships with her father and her brother are strained. Different. Broken. Grace isn't sure when it all really started, but she knows a lot of it began when her Mum died. After this, everything changed a little and then a lot.

Grace was always a prankster, a risk taker. She pushed people's buttons with her nonchalant attitude, while in reality, her anxiety was teetering on the surface, always threatening to leap out of the shadows. Eventually, she realised she wasn't just pushing people's buttons; she was pushing them away. Grace and her family were dealing with grief while not really dealing with it at all. It's hard to deal with grief when you have more questions than answers ... when blame is thrown around like an unwanted, slowly deflating ball.

Grace is partaking in a dare, trying to beat the snobs at the rival school. These schools are rivals in everything, and Grace is used to the challenge; she thrives on it. But this time, something goes wrong. Grace is seemingly unscathed after the event, but she begins to see things, hear things. Things that aren't there. She realises she has to solve the mystery of Hannah Holt, the girl who has been missing for decades, to make it all go away.

Ballad for a Mad Girl deals with a lot of themes that, I think, are extremely important for the Young Adult reader, with one of the biggest themes being grief. Throughout this book, Grace changes. Grief does that to a person. It's like, before and after. Grace tries to cling on to things from her past, not wanting to lose other important things, but as she goes through the grieving process, she slowly learns to accept that things are constantly changing. Most of the time we don't see the changes, because they're subtle, like shadows out of the corners of our eyes.

There is a big supernatural element to this book, and it's hard to keep track of what is real and what isn't. To me, this didn't interrupt the main storyline. At times it contributed to the story, filling in missing pieces, but there were also a few, 'wtf moments,' where I was left wondering whether the event actually happened or if it was simply imagined. Knowing the ending, I'm almost tempted to re-read Ballad for a Mad Girl to see if I can make more sense of some of the more supernatural moments of this book.

3/5 stars. This is the first book I have ever read by Vikki Wakefield. It started well and I was looking forward to seeing where the story took me. There were however multiple points where I felt confused and a little bit lost. I am still not sure whether this was done intentionally to add to the feel of the book or not.

The main character Grace believable and relatable. She has had a difficult past and appears to be damaged as a result of this. She has concerning attitudes and struggles with maintaining relationships because of this. I liked this aspect as it gave Grace a more realistic personality.

I enjoyed that the relationships within the book, especially the one with her brother was so realistic. I have a brother myself and saw some aspects that I recognised.

In a typical mystery/thriller/slightly paranormal book, you never got the full picture until the end, and while I’ve read plenty of other books in this genre, I still didn’t see it coming.

Overall I enjoyed the book. I also found the ending to be satisfying if a little rushed, as though she had a word count to stick to. Honestly, I struggled with the pace throughout. Sometimes it felt as though the book was dragging on and then I couldn’t keep up. As with the confusion I felt reading this book, I am not sure whether the pace was intentional.

I read this book in one sitting, on a blustery night in the middle of autumn. I suggest doing the same. Wrapping yourself up in a warm blanket with a hot drink and giving this book a try. While it didn’t blow me away, it’s definitely worth giving a chance

Ballad for a Mad Girl was a unique take on a ghost story. There were some things that I really liked about this story. I liked the twist about who the ghost really was. I also liked how the author was able to introduce some doubt about what was really going on with Grace after I learned more about her family history. I had a difficult time connecting with the story overall because of some of the lack of formatting in the ARC. I was also confused about where the story took place which affected my connection to the story. It wasn't because it wasn't set in the US , but that I didn't realize it was set in Australia until late in the book (I thought it was set in England). I also thought there could have been more closure regarding Grace's story and what was going to happen with her.

Rating: 3.5/5
*I received a copy of this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a good book, the first book I have ever read by Vikki Wakefield but I will be keeping an eye out for future books by her.
There were multiple points throughout this novel that I felt confused, sort of unsure of what was happening, I believe this was the authors intent as it added to the overall feel of the book. The main character Grace felt authentic, and aside from paranormal aspects, I would imagine many people will be able to relate to her.
Vikki Wakefield has a powerful way of writing, the description was intense, there were aspects of this reminiscent of horror stories.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this it kept me guessing right until the end. This is the first book I’ve read with a what I would describe as strong gothic style, a style I really grew to like as I progressed through the novel. If you’re a fan of YA Mystery Thrillers then you just might love this one.

I loved this book. It captured my imagination in more ways than one, and I was really impressed with the overall effect it had. It's part ghost story, part thriller, part drama. Although parts of it are frightening, it's also a really touching exploration of the devastating effects of grief and how different people experience it. It's woven together so well - there are seemingly minor events early on that take on new significance later, and you realise that every detail is there for a reason.

I read it very quickly because I was so gripped by it, but I'd definitely like to go back and re-read it more slowly to fully appreciate the cleverness of the plot.

Thanks to a very blustery and wet Saturday, I read <i>Ballad for a Mad Girl</i> in almost one sitting. It was an entertaining and gripping read, with a couple of unexpected twists in the narrative. Would recommend for fans of supernatural thrillers, 14+

3,5/5 stars.

Ballad for a Mad Girl was definitely not what I expected to be. When diving into this book, I didn't really know which genre it was; and I was more than surprised to realise it was a mystery/paranormal-ish book. I have to admit that I was really confused at first, not knowing what was going on and where the story was going. But as I read, I started to get captivated by the story and its complex, lost and mysterious main character, Grace. Moreover, the author, Vikki Wakefield, has a really nice writing that will suck you in and let you wonder the same questions Grace has.
However, I had a few issues with it such as the pace that was sometimes a bit too fast or too slow for me, as well as the ending that in my opinion, was a bit rushed. But otherwise it was a really nice book, quite perfect for Halloween and autumn.

I was hesitant about this as i've read lots of books with a supposedly quirky, unusual and awkward main character and most of them are bad but this was such a wonderful surprise. I was hooked within the first few pages and spent my whole afternoon lost in this world. I heartily recommend this book.

This was a story about a girl who tries to solve a twenty-year-old mystery while dealing with a ghost lurking around and within her.

It is told in the perspective of Grace Foley. One night when she goes to walk the pipe, one of the events where the rival schools compete in. She's done it a million times before, but this night, something goes wrong.

Soon she is convinced that she is possessed by the twenty year old spirit of Hannah Holt and must solve her disappearance in order to be freed from her ghost. But when she tries to tell her friends, they don't know whether to take it as another of her pranks. With no one on her side, she's left to solve the mystery on her own.

Through the book, I started to question what I was reading. I mean, it seemed like Grace's life was starting to fall apart in any way possible, and I couldn't tell whether this was her doing or some ghost's. She definitely started out as an unreliable narrator, and it was hard to tell the truth from the lies.

I honestly trudged through three-quarters of the book. There was so much filler on Grace's school, and friend, and family issues. I mean, who really cares about Grace's missing axolotls (I'm sorry, but really). Maybe it was just me, but the mystery element also just didn't engage me at all. It felt like Grace was just going everywhere for answers and never getting a clear lead. It was only for the last fifty pages where things began to kick off.

I won't deny that I found the ending satisfying. It was and wasn't what you were expecting. Honestly, while I wasn't that attached to Grace or her friends, I really kept thinking about the fate of Hannah and William and how things could have been different. In fact, I think I kept going with the book because I wanted to find out what happened to Hannah. At least Grace's discovery did not disappoint.

I may have not enjoyed the book as much as I would have probably because it wasn't really been up my alley. But the main issue for me was the lack of suspense and rapid heart beating.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange of my honest review.

I need to be honest it took me a bit more of a month to engage and finish this book. The premise is spectacular but the writing is a bit unemotional at the beginning, the main character annoyed me so much that I decided to read first another two books before finishing this one. But I was determined in reading til the end.

It’s a YA mixed with mystery and thriller possession with ghosts and all this hallucination things in it. Grace Foley is a daring girl, the one that always needs to show up, make everyone notice her and talk about her for days until something happens. She feels haunted, she starts having dreams and experiences that does not belong to her, it belongs to someone who died twenty-three years ago and she needs to resolve this mystery if she wants her life back. All of her friends don’t believe her now after all the pranks and stupid things she’s done, so she’s all on her own trying to figure everything out.

The beginning is very dragging and she is very very very annoying, but I was glad that I actually decided to finish it up the book. Slowly she starts to grow on you, her attitude starts changing and she actually starts caring about other people besides herself. I like when you can see the main character grow into a better person. And I love this paranormal stuff, in movies, tv shows and when it’s well written in books. The author has potential, she knows how to walk around the mystery of the murder without giving out too much until the time is right, I really liked it because it took me some reading deeper into the story to connect the dots and it was pleasant the final act.

I must say I didn’t really like her friends, maybe because you don’t really get a good glimpse of them before she really gets mad and with ghosts around her, but I wouldn’t like to have friends that would just drop me like a hot potato like they did to her. After all of her talking of their years and years of friendship I found it a bit cruel on their parts to do that even being as obnoxious as Grace were.

Grace lost her mother two years prior and she had to move out of her beloved home to a place she dislike. She only has her brother and her dad now but every single of them are fighting their own demons too busy grieving too.

She really outdid herself, going into extremes to just found out everything about the murder of the past. The ghost just do enough to clue her in but she needs to figure everything out by herself. I like this, I like the workout it gives your mind, a good old mystery where you need to really pay attention to the details so you can figure it out without the author simply putting right there in your face. After I got hooked in the story I just flew through the pages. I’m still on the fence about the ending but I find it acceptable to the story.

I’m glad she actually got better at the end of the book, seeing she’s not the only person she should care about, I really liked her maturity towards the end.

I’m curious to know if there will be more book with Grace as a main character but trying to help other ghosts around.

I know that the author is Australian which is very nice for a change of all the American ones we are so used to. She’s very promising, her writing can get better and her stories too so I’m excited for more books to come around here.

I am unable to provide a review at this time. Unfortunately, I DNFed this book in the first 18%. It just didn't hold my attention. I apologize for the inconvenience.

I love a YA book that doesn't obsess over teenage romance!

This was my first Wakefield book so I came in with no expectations. I love that this is a contemporary-style Oz book but it is also so much more. I love love love when I don't know what is going to happen in a mystery book. Because, I mean, isn't that the whole point? And I loved the paranormal aspect - while only moderately spooky, it fit the story and the mystery gloriously. AND I just love things creepy and dark.

This book was a great adventure and I enjoyed it a tonne. I wish, as a reader, I was moved to have an emotional attachment to the characters - particularly Grace. The fact that her entire body is falling apart and I still didn't really care...

I also just found that the ending was lacking. For a book which had such a thrill ride through many parts, the ending just didn't have a fantastic BOOM like I wanted. The ending to the actual mystery was slightly more final and satisfactory for me - but honestly not by much.

But I still thought it was a pretty great read.



Note: Thank you to Netgallery and Text Publishing for this ARC copy. This has not impacted on my honest review.

Well this was an absolute whirlwind and considering as I've just finished it... I'm utterly speechless but also want to discuss it. You guys know the feeling.

I went into this book with no clue what it was about and I thank NetGalley for the review copy. This book had me going, 'what the shit' almost constantly but I pretty much set a record for how fast I read it. Just absolutely crazy. Will definitely be reading more from this author in the future.

We are first introduced to Grace and learn that she is trying to navigate life and her relationships after her mom passes away. What I wasn't expecting was a book that legitimately creeped me out to my core and I'm still not sure exactly what was happening. Ghost possession? Mental illness? A crazy imagination? I'm not sure.

First off the writing was absolutely brilliant. I've got sections marked on my kindle copy where I just favourited the authors beautiful prose. Sentences that had me gasping and metaphors and similes that gave me chills. The story was completely unique and I was riveted from the first sentence.

I only had two gripes about this novel which is why they aren't five stars. Firstly, I found the interactions between the friends and family to be lacklustre. I would have like a bit more delving into these relationships that Grace apparently is highly dependent on. Random friends just leaving the group and no discussions about a few very severe incidents that occur bothered me a bit.

The second was a bit of a deus ex machina situation. If it weren't for specific unrealistic things happening, which were only unrealistic because it wasn't as explained as I would have liked, then the story would not have come to its conclusion. I wanted more of Grace sneaking around sleuthing rather than hallucination, or whatever she was doing, the answers to the questions she so desperately wanted.

Ballad for a Mad Girl was slightly confusing, moderately spooky, and very mysterious. I liked that I could not for the life of me figure out how it was all going to come together. Honestly, I am still trying to figure it out. Was it mental illness? Or was there real paranormal stuff going down? The world may never know. I liked most of the characters but I had a few problems with Grace. She started out okay, an angsty, rebellious teen acting out after the death of her mom. I sympathized with her. However, throughout the book she isolated herself and became somewhat selfish because she just figured no one would understand what she was going through. Also, she kept talking about how funny she was but I felt like I never got to really see that. The middle section of this book was a little confusing for me. I found it hard to keep up and since we were seeing things through Grace’s point of view, we don’t really get the full picture and it seemed like there were too many pieces missing. With that being said, this book had a really good ending. I completely did not see it coming. It was able to answer so many questions, but then opened up a whole new set of questions to keep us wondering and thinking about the book after we are finished. Overall, there were a couple things about this book I would change, but I enjoyed reading it and I flew through it. Not to mention I love ghost stories. This author will certainly be on my radar in the future.

Grace Foley is troubled, by anyone's definition of the word. She's been a fan of increasingly outlandish pranks since she was small and has little regard for her own safety. Since the tragic death of her mother a couple of years previously, and the subsequent move away from the family farm. Now 17 Grace is facing her final year of school with her close group of friends but Grace is falling apart and concerning everyone.
Right from the start you know Grace is damaged. She's carrying a world of hurt inside her which is making her increasingly detached from those that love her. A crisis point at the start of the novel sees Grace dragged into a years old mystery and an obsession with a missing girl, and a dead boy. Only Grace can make the connection between these events which happened before she was born.
This is a brilliantly written book. Vikki Wakefield writes Grace beautifully. Her descent into madness and loss of control unfold against the backdrop of friends who are moving on and preoccupied with their own lives, Grace is left behind and then isolated because of what is happening inside her own head.
It's hard to categorise this book. There's an element of horror, certainly, but I don't like to read that genre and I coped fine with the level that this is pitched at. It's certainly YA and a very good example of it. So much YA is simply 'girl meets boy' but this is a real exposition of a teenager in crisis which deserves to be more widely read. Wakefield drags the reader along with Grace's journey and I couldn't put the book down. She's not the most likable character but she is often endearing and charming and it's hard not to feel sorry for her, even though she'd reject your pity if it was offered.
A rewarding and challenging read. Excellent.

It is really amazing the power of a good cover and title. The only thing that I really knew when I first found Ballad of a Mad Girl was the way the title looked. Despite the book being over three hundred pages, I read it in a single evening and now I will certainly be taking note of Vikki Wakefield’s work. This book was amazing, a near masterpiece. For all my reviews I attempt to explain what I liked and didn’t like and why so that you can decide if it is right for you. Please feel free to leave comments or message me, I am always happy to talk about reviews or the books themselves.

Who is Vikki Wakefield? Well this is my first foray into her so I decided to take a moment to read her biography. I always read about the author of a book before reading it to get a feel for them. There are a lot of benefits to doing this, but one reason is prejudices thrown into a book is not generally my taste so I try to avoid it. Vikki’s bio doesn’t tell me a whole lot about her feelings and preferences except that she seemed to have a lack of creative outlet in her first life in the daily grind. She talks about her past work in accounting and journalism and how she’s adventurous and frankly sounds like a lot of fun to hang out with. While I may not have a sense on how she feels about big issues, I’m very glad that she decided to become a writer.

One of the first things about reading books I’ve come to appreciate is the importance of design. This can the three act structure, or other foundational rules like following a guiding principal and keeping your story honest. In the case of a good book you won’t even notice these rules exist or are being followed because they will just feel natural. While it may seem constricting, the rules are actually very open ended. I will go over each of those three and how they apply to this book because I think they have a lot to do with what makes it so great.

Is Ballad of a Mad girl about mental illness or not? It isn’t instantly clear and I’m not going to spoil that for you, only that the book sets the stage very well so that you are able to accept and understand what is happening thorough out the rest of the story. I’m a big fan of ghost stories and this one certainly is one even if you wanted to say it was all a delusion. There is a great deal of suspense and a great deal of mystery, the latter of which you could probably largely solve on your own if you wanted to really put the pieces together. There are twists but none without adequate foreshadowing and the hints to solve what is going on, but it’s up to you if you want to try to put them together or just enjoy the ride. It’s satisfying either way and in no way utilizes the out of left field tricks to cheapen the experience of the mystery.

Characters all feel very real, with flaws and motivations all their own. The reader might have a window into more than the characters themselves, primarily in that we’re not in the same frame of mind as the characters, but this doesn’t affect what the characters know or do. The guiding principal is one that should be pretty clear to the reader early on. Ultimately this is a coming of age story and that is where every single aspect of it is rooted. Why is that important? Because it means that everything that happens in the story will fit and none of it feels like filler or added for cheap thrills. This is one of my biggest complaints about a book and many readers will eat that stuff up especially when it is a romance with a new romantic excitement. This book does not strive to give the reader any of those instant gratification pay offs, instead focusing on the long and hard earned. You the reader might find this to be not to your liking, this book is going to engage from start to finish but what it isn’t going to do is give you a quick fix.

Telling the truth is very important to me. Most things that can be considered plot holes are when books are being dishonest. Does this element fit the narrative, the characters and the reality that has been established? If not, it is lying. This book doesn’t tell lies. Every bit of it goes back to the reality that was laid out for you and even fits the guiding principal. Now herein lies probably the biggest debate you could have in the book. Before I mentioned that this is a ghost story but you could insist it is all delusion. That’s ultimately not the story it is trying to tell because the book isn’t about delusion, not really, it is about growing up. This means is questions about reality or fiction will be answered because they’re not supposed to be the central point. The book could have played more with the is she or isn’t she crazy but that wouldn’t have fit.

In most of my reviews I usually attempt to put a section in where I can talk about the bad of a book, but in this case that section is going to be absent. There simply wasn’t anything about this book I can really complain about. There are some matters of taste that might make an individual not want to read this book, but for me this book was entirely up my alley. A few notes, this book is a Young Adult. That’s kind of a vague thing since that category includes things like the maze running with some rather graphic acts of child murders or hunger games, so to be more specific in what I mean is that this book is rather simple in terms of light and dark. We’re only going to skirt a little bit of assault and bullying and darker themes and unhappy endings really aren’t applicable. Some dark stuff does happen and is strangely glossed over though, possibly owing onto the genre. Once again, I chalk that up to the age range, the book could of probably focused a lot on the emotional trauma of the bullying and how the characters reacted but it just doesn’t. Frankly this is the biggest criticism I could come up with and it isn’t even a good point because to focus on the bullying wouldn’t of fit the guiding principal. In other words, it would have been a different book. Does that mean the toe dipped in darker subject matter is out of place? Well not exactly, it does fit the story, but at the same time I could see the argument why it shouldn’t have been included. If it would bother you to touch but largely gloss over this aspect then you might be bothered by it.

At the end of the day I found Ballad of a Mad Girl to be a near masterpiece if not complete perfection. I kind of hate giving five-star reviews because it sounds kind of cheap, or pandering, but I hope my review going into depth has helped you see that I am not doing this. There certainly is a matter of taste and for me this book fit my interest very well, but that doesn’t mean it will be universally loved. Romance novels are for instance very popular and this book is not that. If you’re hoping for high flying action then you’re also looking in the wrong place. For what this book is, the execution, the writing style and the characters I do feel this book couldn’t have done better. I would recommend this book as an essential read.