Momma warned her not to consort with the dead and tried to teach her the magic spells that would close the portal to the afterlife. But Crystal doesn’t want to be a trailer-trash witch like Momma. She has dreams of going to community college and escaping the Appalachian town of Parson’s Ford.
Her best friend Bone is only too happy to escape the afterlife and help Crystal break the rules. Bone died too young, and she’ll do whatever it takes to remain among the living.
Then a teen movie maker comes to Parson’s Ford, and he has a very special project in mind: a horror movie starring a real ghost. The kids who watch his movies turn into brainwashed zombies. And to totally complicate matters, Crystal thinks he’s kind of a hunk, and she’s afraid her boyfriend Pettigrew only loves her because of Momma’s magic spells.
Now it’s Halloween, the night when the portal to the afterlife is widest, and somebody’s been messing with Momma’s potions. The fate of the world is in Crystal’s hands, but she hasn’t been paying attention to her lessons. And a mysterious figure in the afterlife is urging Bone to stay loyal to her own kind instead of to Crystal.
The movie is rolling, the creatures are stirring, and the brainwashed teenagers are ready to welcome a new star from the other side of the grave.
Crystal and Bone must overcome drama queens, coffin cuties, and mangled magic if they want to remain best friends forever—but at this rate, forever may not last much longer.
While this claims to be the first of a series, there haven't been any installments in 8 years, so I'd consider it abandoned. And I can't say I blame it.
This story needed a couple more goings over before it was published. The grammar was fine, the style was fine, but the mythology, characters, and plot were all over the place. First, the mythology: there was never any clarity on how magic, death, the afterlife, or ANYTHING worked. Why does missing a potion ingredient result in random talking newts, but missing words in a spell result in nothing? Why do they constantly rhyme gone and bone? What the heck was with that guardian angel puddle? Why do dead people still suffer from diseases that killed them? What (if any) rules actually applied to Bone? It's hard to get worried about the stakes when nothing is clear in the first place.
Crystal was more fleshed out than anyone else, partly because she was the easiest to relate to. A frustrated teen who doesn't want to be stuck with her family's responsibility - sure we've seen it before, but we at least know what to expect. Thing is, her frustration with her mother doesn't have anything to do with her charmed boyfriend. She's constantly describing him as unfavorable, the only good things being that he's loyal and easy to train. And she's not even that warm to her dead best friend. So other than having a destiny she really doesn't want, she's not all that likeable a character.
Bone, our other titular character, doesn't fare much better. She is the hardest person by far to root for: she constantly complains about everything - being dead, not aging, not having a boyfriend, etc.; she makes Crystal seem crazy by talking in ghost-mode with other people around; and she is horrible to this kid she used to know who died of cancer (who still suffers from it because....???). Then on top of all that, she gets involved with an apocalyptic plan and doesn't even try to tell Crystal about it. Yeah I get it, she's 16 so she's selfish and snarky, but if she's supposed to share the protagonist role you'd think she'd have something to like about her besides her smart mouth.
Then come the guys. Pettigrew and Tim, the 'good boys' didn't have any narration, so their characterization, as described by our protagonists, was loyal, dirty, dumb country hick and sickly, naive, puppy-dog with cancer, respectively. Dempsey, the movie-maker, and Royce, the dead dreamboat, were both handsome, egotistical, and idiotic in their own ways. It was never really clear whether we were supposed to fear either of them for their schemes or pity them for their naivete in the apocalypse. And they're seducing our main girls.
Finally, the plot ran all over the place. In a nutshell, Halloween is coming and Crystal is the reluctant guardian of the gates to/from the afterlife. Some spooks from the other side want to break loose, so they form a plan to get Royce, the unborn brother of James Dean, famous enough to break down the veil between life and death. This involves Dempsey brainwashing teens with subliminal messages in movies (without magic?) to worship Royce, Bone sabotaging Crystal's potions, and...distracting Crystal with boyfriend issues? Seriously, I don't even know.
Crystal doesn't want anything to do with her magical inheritance, so distracting her shouldn't be that hard - just don't have anything to do with her, her job, or her boyfriend. But instead, they decide to start their conquest via home videos when she works at the video rental store, throw their supernatural cash cow (Royce) in her face, and cast her boyfriend in the apocalypse-starting movie.
And why was brainwashing people important to the plan? It wasn't like they needed enough people to believe in fairies and clap their hands for the creatures to come through the orifices. And the zombies didn't do anything helpful to either side in the end, they just made noise for atmosphere. I suppose they could just be there for social networking after the movie, but I hardly think brainwashing is necessary if you just included them in your movie anyway.
And why was Bone essential to anything? Does the Judge actually have any power over her, or is she just able to come and go from the living world because she's a Tweener? How does he decree whether or not she can go solid? Honestly, nothing to do with the afterlife is ever explained, so nothing makes sense, especially the plan to break out. If it was as simple as sabotaging Crystal's mom, then just do that.
Or is Crystal the key to any orifices being able to open? If so, then why doesn't her mom get her the hell away from them!!! Or, if one will just form wherever she is, why doesn't the mom just follow her around on Halloween? Unless there is literally no rhyme or reason to magic at all, there's no reason for there to be this much scrambling at the last minute.
Anyway, I didn't hate the story, but I can't see any reason to read it again. The characters weren't charming, the magic/afterlife mumbo jumbo had no explanation given, and thus the overall plot fell flat. Fine if you're looking for Halloweeny fluff with a lot of snark, but I'll just pop in Hocus Pocus.)
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
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