Review of One Hundred Candles by Mara Purnhagen

Whew what a crazy holiday! My holiday has been really crazy with traveling to see family and grading my students final exams. Thus I haven’t had much time to write up reviews. I am currently working on a list of the top books that I read in 2010 to post on here. In the mean time here is my review of One Hundred Candles by Mara Purnhagen.

The summary from the galley is: It’s taken a long time for me to feel like a normal teenager. But now that I’m settled in a new school, where people know me as more than Charlotte Silver of the infamous Silver family paranormal investigators, it feels like everything is falling into place. And what better way to be normal than to go on a date with a popular football star like Harris Abbott? After all, it’s not as if Noah is anything more than a friend...

But my new life takes a disturbing turn when Harris brings me to a party and we play a game called One Hundred Candles. It seems like harmless, ghostly fun. Until spirits unleashed by the game start showing up at school. Now my friends and family are in very real danger, and the door that I’ve opened into another realm may yield deadly consequences.

I was a little more impressed with this book. I wasn’t a huge fan of past midnight but I found this plot to be a lot more intriguing. The plot is somewhat reminiscent of a mystery book as you are trying to puzzle together what exactly Charlotte has done that is causing all of the strange happenings and also what the repercussions are going to be for her actions.

I found Charlotte’s character to be a lot more dynamic in this book. We see a lot more of her interacting with her peers and not just her best girl friend. Although throughout the book I wasn’t a fan of Harris I was rooting for Noah despite the way things ended in Past Midnight. I was quite happy with the resolution of the story although it is not an ending for your passive YA paranormal readers. It is not the sweet happy ending that is typical of this genre. Charlotte has to deal with a lot in the ending of the story. However, I respect the author for changing that up and for creating this interesting new perspective in paranormal. The Silvers are still holding onto science but there is a bit more mysticism in this book.

Overall I give it a 3.5/5. I liked the plot a lot more from the last book but it was still missing something for me. I’m not quite sure I can put my finger on it but it just didn’t hook me in the same way as most paranormal books do.