Once Dead, Twice Shy

Madison Avery died on her prom night. Targeted by a dark reaper, she died at the bottom of a ravine when her car flipped into it. But Madison's soul stole it's amulet before the reaper could take her. Now she's living with the appearance of a body thanks to her stolen amulet. She's able to carry on her normal life...sort of. But the dark reapers are after her. They want the amulet back and her soul.

Kim Harrison has a tendency to information dump in her first book of a series. It's just her particular style of world building, to throw it all out front for people to see. While this is a huge pet peeve of mine, The Hollows series taught me that Kim has a lot more to offer in books that continue the series. But this time I have to take a star away for it. Madison is given the world building information early on in the story. Ok fine, I expected it. But then Madison repeats this same information, almost word for word with another character later on. This is a waste of page space and my time.

Madison is a repetitive and whiney character. She plunges headfirst into situations even when she knows the results are going to end up a disaster. I wouldn't mind such tendencies if there was a decent storyline to follow. This is targeted towards the younger side of YA, with the fact Madison is more concerned with catching a cute guy than keeping her head above water.

And talk about annoying characters...Grace is horrible. Madison is assigned a guardian angel to try and hide her from the dark reapers. It talks in limericks and acts like an immature child. I think Grace was supposed to be the comic relief, pulling pranks to keep Madison from getting into trouble, but every time I saw her dialogue pop up, I wanted to just skip the lines. Again, I am not the targeted audience and I won't be too harsh on my rating because of it. I will not be continuing the series.

In this fast-paced novel of the cosmic world being balanced between light and dark, Madison Avery has become a pawn in the grand scheme of things–and she doesn't know how big a pawn she is. Barnabus, her light-reaper “teacher” skips out for less than forty-eight hours with his boss, and that's all it takes for Madison to get the ball rolling into more trouble than her death and stealing-of-the-amulet originally cost. There is deception around every corner, and the crush and guardian angel that she's come to name are the only she can trust for that time. “Mad Madison” always accused of being the oddball and trouble-maker, finds it no easier to deal with the popular crowd once she's dead. Except, maybe taking some bad shots of Queen B in all her sweat-stained track gear glory.
In Once Dead, Twice Shy, you get a deeper sense of Madison's kind-hearted, wild heart–even if it only tends to beat when she's scared or panicking, and that is fairly often. You also find out the real “meaningful” purpose as to why Kairos–dark-reaper–specifically targeted her in the first place, and then again after death wasn't enough to accomplish the putting-back-together-fate process. Besides the wit and adventrous-battling streak, there is a sark-worthy humor, in which I found some substitutes to my usual profane babbler-mouth. Son of a dead puppy; Oh, for cripe's sake; What the devil; there are a couple others that I cannot remember and equally love. There is also hinting of romance here and there, and a good measure of finding oneself and not trying to be like everyone else to fit in; that I know you won't want to miss...