Three Quarters Dead

September 13, 2010
Peck never writes a book that is less than a page-turner, and this paranormal horror story captures the extremes of joy and dread, belonging and ostracism that are the core of the high school experience. Fifteen-year-old Kerry Williamson is new at prestigious suburban Pondfield High and doesn't expect much. Her status is transformed the day Tanya, Natalie, and Makenzie—the coolest, prettiest junior and senior girls—welcome her into their clique ("I'd moved from reality to a reality show, and what could be better?"), although a place in this charmed circle doesn't guarantee the respect of its rulers. A fatal accident just weeks before prom steals all the magic away—until an impossible text message tells Kerry that, just maybe, not everything has been lost. Kerry's voice is wistful, vulnerable, and would-be sophisticated, and the excuses she gives for her compromises ring both hollow and true. Perhaps because of this realism, the sudden escalation of fantastic horror in the last third of the book comes across as a pat resolution. Nevertheless, the story keeps its hold on readers to the very end. Ages 12–up.

September 15, 2010
Self-described follower Kerry ("I was always a step behind. I lived back there") finds herself in over her head when she is unexpectedly adopted by the three coolest girls in school. The power trio, headed by the Machiavellian Tanya, who has the mysterious ability to slow time, proceed to use Kerry as their patsy until their untimely deaths in a car accident. Kerry is devastated--until she receives a text from Beyond instructing her to meet the resurrected crew for a night of pre-prom partying. But when she realizes dead Tanya is bent on eliminating the one boy who dared turn her down, the serial follower must take charge in order to save Prom Night. This staccato-sentenced chiller is not so much a ghost story as it is a smart, sly treatise on friendship, bullying and the timeless power of high-school hierarchies. Peck's supernatural worldbuilding is a bit muddy, but when he hits his stride, his sonorous language chills; his real-life depictions of adolescent egotism and back-stabbing cruelty are spot-on. Probably more for fans of Cecily Von Ziegesar than Lois Duncan. (Horror. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 1, 2010

Gr 6-10-Kerry, a sophomore at a top school, spends most of her time alone, feeling invisible. Suddenly and without reason, she is befriended by the three most popular and powerful girls in school. Feeling alive and important, and desperate to keep her new friends happy, she goes along with their pranks and plans, even when they are exceedingly cruel. When a car accident takes the queen bees' lives, Kerry ends up socially dead. But several months after their funerals, she gets a strange text message. The mean girls are back, wanting to go out into the world, and needing her to make that happen. This is a compulsive page-turner. The fast-paced story is chilling on several levels. Kerry's lack of self-confidence allows her to be used horribly, and it is hard to decide which is scarier-her caving in to peer pressure or her spending time with rotting ghosts. Peck can conjure up a scene with details so believable, you can practically smell and taste them. A small flaw is that he never quite nails modern teen girl-speak, which comes across as forced and is mixed up with old-fashioned phrases. But for horror fans seeking a thrill, those details may be trivial. This is a good choice for young teens who have run through all of the Caroline Cooney's or Lois Duncan's books.-Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2010
Grades 6-9 Socially invisible sophomore Kerry is grateful when she is chosen to hang with the most legendary trio in school: Natalie, Makenzie, and leader Tanya. Dazzled by their beauty, perfection, and the cool efficiency with which they control their peers social lives, Kerry allows the girls to manipulate her until she is completely under their spell. Not even death can stop them, as Kerry learns after the trio dies in a car crash but returns from the grave for one last party. Their reanimation doesnt throw Kerry, who convinces herself that their deaths were a dream, but she confronts the truth when it becomes clear that their time is limited and that Tanya doesnt intend to return to death peacefully. Peck accentuates the scary dominance cliques wield in high school by imbuing them with supernatural power, easing what could have been a pointed message. Kerrys first-person narration is foreboding, taking on the quality of a weird, half-remembered dream, but its effective for conveying her consuming obsession and eventual waking to a life on her own terms.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2010
In his first book set in the twenty-first century, Peck returns to his ghost-story roots. At exclusive Pondfield High School, sophomore Kerry Williamson has been allowed into the clique of super-cool senior girls Tanya, Makenzie, and Natalie -- beautiful, manipulating, and mean, like black widow spiders on the Web, texting, networking, and multitasking, busily controlling the social life of their realm. And so thrilled is Kerry to rise from nobody status to denizen of the inner sanctum that she doesn't question her good fortune. When Tanya, Natalie, and Makenzie are killed in a car crash while texting her, Kerry feels she is nothing without them; she's three quarters dead. But the dead return, and the story turns dark, with a downright macabre denouement. As always, Peck masterfully uses the first-person point of view to get inside his protagonist's head, trace her journey, and show her finally taking a stand and beginning to understand that there's a world out there beyond the peer group. There's no Grandma Dowdel here, no strong adult in this world run by children, so Kerry must find her own way. Peck's message about the power of the peer group could easily have been more didactic, but wrapping the story in the shrouds of a ghost story was a stroke of genius, making it a creepy tale middle school girls will die for...if they put down their cell phones long enough to read it. dean Schneider

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2011
Sophomore Kerry is thrilled to be allowed into a clique of super-cool seniors. When the other girls are killed in a car crash, Kerry feels she's "three quarters dead"--until the dead return. Peck masterfully uses a first-person viewpoint to trace his protagonist's journey. Wrapping events in the shrouds of a ghost story balances his message about the power of the peer group.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)