The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

Like I said in my last post, my disdain for holiday reads has completely vanished this year, so I had to pick up a few new books to get into the spirit of the season. The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand was one of them. This YA fiction is a modern twist on the classic story of A Christmas Carol. 

Holly Chase is not a nice girl. When she is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve who beg her to change her ways, Holly laughs it off and refuses. Then she dies. At least, she thinks she does.

When she wakes up, trapped somewhere between dead and alive, she is the newest employee of the top-secret company Project Scrooge, the same organization who tried to save her before her death. Now she has to work with them year after year as the Ghost of Christmas Past to help save each year's chosen Scrooge from the same fate that Holly endured.

This book was really cute, and had some unexpected twists as well! I liked how this really didn't end up being centered around romance or a relationship (although parts of it do lend itself to that).  I was very satisfied with the ending. It reminded me a lot of that really obscure movie from ABC, Teen Spirit. It was a little slow in parts, but I really liked all the characters. I mean come on, they all had nicknames based on Dickens' stories! 

This story definitely has the perfect Christmas message, and would be enjoyable for both teens and adults (even if you don't commonly read YA!). I can see this being a read that I revisit each holiday season.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars