Missing, Presumed Dead

With a touch, Lexi can sense how and when someone will die. Some say it’s a gift. But to Lexi it’s a curse—one that keeps her friendless and alone. All that changes when Lexi foresees the violent death of a young woman, Jane, outside a club. But Jane doesn’t go to the afterlife quietly. Her ghost remains behind, determined to hunt down her murderer, and she needs Lexi’s help. In life, Jane was everything Lexi is not—outgoing, happy, popular. But in death, all Jane wants is revenge. Lexi will do anything to help Jane, to make up for the fact that she didn’t—couldn’t—save Jane’s life, and to keep this beautiful ghost of a girl by her side for as long as possible. 

Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist - release date May 21, 2019

If this book taught me one thing, it's not to go to LA without expecting tons of witches, psychics, and other various magical people!  (But according to YA and urban legend, it's like that in every city LOL.)  This novel focuses on a girl named Lexi whose power is to see people's deaths.  So she's not quite a witch or a psychic, but somewhere in between.

Because Lexi can see people's deaths when she touches them, she tends to avoid touching people like the plague.  In fact, she tries to avoid living people in general, which turns her into a lonely and very grumpy person.  So this book was interesting to watch her develop from the closed off person who "has no friends" to someone who will try to let people in.  That only gets easier/harder (depending on how she looks at it) when she meets the ghost of Jane.  Jane was innocent and carefree in life, but in death she is an extremely angry spirit.  Jane and Lexi have to work together to find the killer.  Every type of tension to exist between two people are between these two and at a high level.  ;)

I found it super cool how randomly the narrative would interrupt to insert a random science fact (usually about space) and then by the end of the paragraph tie it back into what was happening, since the 'random' facts were always relevant.  I also liked how quick moving it was.  And, while Lexi has much more inner turmoil than an average person, I found her character was very relatable.

4 out of 5 stars.  This was a super easy and quick read.  I'd recommend to anyone who wants a ghost story past your average haunting tropes!  Took me 6 days to read, but probably would've been less if I didn't have AP testing this week.

-Taylor

Reviewed on May 19, 2019

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