Review: Skeleton Creek

by Patrick Carman

Summary: Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out. . .and then email the clips for Ryan to see.

In a new, groundbreaking format, the story is broken into two parts -- Ryan's text in the book, and Sarah's videos on a special website, with links and passwords given throughout the book.*,

Review: In the complete opposite with the previous book I reviewed (Shadowed Summer), I thought Skeleton Creek was going to be... cool. Okay. Neat. But no- it was fantastic. Definitely the best book I've read in a long time. Ryan's journal was realistic, like it really was a journal (ever read those books where you were like... no way someone would write like that in a journal? Yeah, this isn't like that.) Even though the jounal was personal, it felt like it was meant to be read.

Sarah's videos. The most important part. The part that made people debate whether Skeleton Creek was really a book since there were (heaven forbid) movies intertwined with it. It took me all of 5 minutes to get used to Sarah. For a minute it seemed kind of fake to me, but then I realized that I would probably sound the same way on a video. Sarah didn't try to make it over-dramatic. She made it kind of creepy, but Ryan tells us in the journal that she's just like that. So I thought Sarah had personality. She wasn't annoying, and the videos seemed so real. (I FREAKED over the last one... pathetic, I know.)

Which brings me to the ending, which left my jaw dropped for 5 minutes, while I texted my friend and paced my room, because Skeleton Creek was the best 'haunted' story I think I've ever read. Action-packed, mysterious, quirky, tense, and even with some depth, Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman deserves the 5 stars I'm giving it.

5 Stars

Rating: PG for some frightening images ;)

Length: 144 Pages (yes, a quick read. Even more reason to dive in!)

Released: February 10, 2009

p.s. don't kill me if you don't like it because you don't like ghost stories. But I bet you will.

* Summary From Amazon