Review: Ashes to Ashes by Melissa C. Walker

18 December, 2013 Reviews 16 comments

Review: Ashes to Ashes by Melissa C. WalkerAshes to Ashes by Melissa C. Walker
Series: Ashes #1
Published by Katherine Tegen Books on December 23rd 2013
Pages: 356
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Amazon Good BooksBook Depository
Goodreads
two-stars

f I Stay meets the movie Ghost in this first book in a teen duology about a teenage-girl-turned-ghost who must cling to the echoes of her former life to save the people she left behind.

Ashes to Ashes is author Melissa Walker's sweeping, romantic, and emotionally rich story about the things that torment and tempt us, even from the Great Beyond. This book is perfect for fans of Die for Me and Imaginary Girls, and its breathtaking ending will leave readers anxiously awaiting the series conclusion, Dust to Dust.

When Callie's life is cut short by a tragic accident, she expects to find nothingness, or maybe some version of heaven.

Instead, her spirit travels to the Prism, an ethereal plane populated by the ghosts she thought were fictional. Here she meets a striking and mysterious ghost named Thatcher, who is meant to guide her as she learns to haunt and bring peace to the loved ones she left behind.

However, Callie uncovers a dark secret about the spirit world: The angry souls who always populate ghost stories are real, dangerous, and willing to do whatever it takes to stay on Earth, threatening the existence of everyone she ever cared about.

As she fights to save them, Callie will learn that while it may no longer beat, her heart can still love-and break.

From Goodreads

I can pretty much bucket all of my problems with this book into two main categories: Melissa Walker’s version of the afterlife (which I realize is entirely personal) and the way the plot unfolds. This ended up being a little more rant-y than I initially intended, so I’ve included a healthy dose of Dean and his wonderful facial expressions to make it a more pleasurable experience

Issue 1: The Afterlife

In Ashes to Ashes, the afterlife is full of ghosts hovering around their unknowing loved ones as their presence heals the living, helping them to move on and therefore allowing the ghosts to basically level up to the next plain of consciousness where they will supposedly find peace and oneness with the universe. While I can get behind leveling up to peace and oneness, the hanging around watching the people you love be sad sounds incredibly depressing to me. We’re told it’s okay because normal ghosts (of course, Callie is special) are kind of like the Dolls in the show Dollhouse. They’re happy and blank, going about their business all placid-like. Blech. Zombie ghosts. While normally that word combination would make me go AWESOME, in this case, no thank you.

Yuck

It gets worse though. You can’t spend all your time haunting as being on the same plain of the living zaps a ghost’s energy and you have to go back to Prism (i.e. purgatory) to recharge. No big deal, right? You can kick back, chill with your ghost buddies or maybe read a book or something while you charge your batteries, right? WRONG. While in Prism, ghosts go to their personal spaces, are not supposed to invite anyone else in (something about stealing energy? I didn’t really care I was too busy dealing with my mounting horror) and meditate. MEDITATE.

THE HORROR

No books, no music, no TV, no entertainment of any kind, NO INTERNET. I don’t know about you, but I am not a restful person. I find meditation incredibly annoying and quite frankly, this sounds more like hell to me.

Issue 2: The Plot

The entire plot more or less unfolds something like this:

Callie: I want to do the thing
Thatcher: You can’t do the thing
Callie: Why can’t I do the thing?
Thatcher: Reasons.
Callie: Oh, okay, I guess I won’t do the thing then.
Morally ambiguous bad guys: Hey Callie, come do the thing with us.
Callie: *does the thing*
Thatcher: *disapproves*

I'm stabbing you in my mind

Even more infuriatingly, Thatcher will then get mad at Callie when she doesn’t do what he tells her to. Yes Thatcher, you said she shouldn’t do things, but you NEVER SAID WHY so stop it with the yelling. She’s just supposed to do everything because you say so? Is she your three year old? Is your word law? Who are you again?

In addition to this frustrating exchange that happens over and over, there are supposed to be mysterious shadowy goings on happening that aren’t explained until the very end of the book. While this makes for twist that I didn’t see coming (points awarded for that) up until everything comes clear, I was left with undefined stakes that did nothing to build tension.

Because of the stakelessness of it all, the villains read more like bullies in an after school special, I could picture them dressed in tough-kid clothes (leather, maybe? what are the bad kids wearing these days?) and luring Callie behind the gym with promises of good times and cigarettes, peer-pressuring her by calling her chicken when she doesn’t fall in with what they want her to do (which she does, because in a previous life, Callie was Marty McFly). This ends up making Thatcher more of a strict parental-figure, (“Now Callie, I don’t want you running with that bad crowd.” “But Daaaad I like the way they make me feeeeeeel.”) giving their relationship and extra level of creepy and weird!

AWESOME!

Okay, I lied. There were actually three issues. As you may have already picked up on, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the romance. While most of my problems with Thatcher can be bundled into issue number two and his unwillingness to explain anything, ever, I may have pulled some hair out over Callie’s reaction to Thatcher.

Is it because he’s my all-knowing, all-powerful guide? No, it’s deeper than that. It’s this connection, this loneliness in his soul that I want to befriend, this ache in mine that he soothes. It’s this satisfaction that I feel when I calm the storm in his eyes. It’s the strength in him tempered with compassion.

To clarify, at this point they’ve known each other for all of two to three days in which Thatcher’s mostly been a silent, obnoxiously stoic and vaguely disproving kill joy of a presence. They’ve had a single two-sided conversation in which he told her about his sister (spoiler alert, his sister was sad when he died, the end).

And then, to make matters worse, she’s all strung out over liking him when she still loves Nick, her living boyfriend who officially became ex WHEN SHE DIED. Girl, prioritize. You are freshly dead and stuck in the worst afterlife ever, you’re acting like you’re Elena and this is some kind of dramatic-ass TVD love triangle when it is so emphatically not and, more importantly, YOU HAVE BIGGER ISSUES.

Screaming internally

To summarize, what? why? Ashes to Ashes reeks of invented drama and insta-love and I am simply past the point in my life and book preferences where I have any patience for that kind of thing.

While I will give Walker credit for the end, I did not see the final twist coming, up until that point I felt zero emotional connection, no feels, no anxiety. Honestly? I was often bored. It wasn’t all bad, there were plenty of things to like (Callie’s best friend Carson jumps to mind and the writing was decent when it wasn’t trying to convince me to ship Callie/Thatcher) but overall, it wasn’t enough to engage me and get me past all of the things that bothered me.

*shrug*

Meg Morley

Meg Morley

Co-bloggery at Cuddlebuggery
Meg is an all-around book nerd who just really wants to talk about books, preferably with other people but by herself will do. Find her on Goodreads.

16 Responses to “Review: Ashes to Ashes by Melissa C. Walker”

  1. smiling_ina
    Twitter:

    This one sure sucked, didn’t it?! Well, I know I won’t be going anywhere this one anytime soon, or better yet EVER.
    Awesome review!!! 😀

    • Meg Morley

      It wasn’t my favorite, that’s for sure. There are worse books and I won’t say I hated it, but it was definitely on the ‘meh’ end of the scale to me.

  2. Gillian
    Twitter:

    BAHAHAHA, Megasus, this review made me laugh so. Your summary of the plot is aces, as is this: “spoiler alert, his sister was sad when he died, the end”.

    HARD PASS ON THIS BOOK. No thankssss. I’m glad it exists because of this review and Dean’s face and….

    *stares for far too long*

    Um, what were we talking about?

    • Meg Morley

      Why thank you!! Ahh, Dean’s face. Imagine how much fun I had, erm, researching…yes, researching for this post. Lots of research was necessary. For science.

  3. Ellis

    I AM GOING TO TOUCH THIS BOOK. I AM EVEN GOING TO READ IT.

    Okay, so this positively sounds like a hot mess, but I’m actually intrigued. It would probably be against my better judgement, with everything you listed here. Disapproving love interest whose standard attitude is “Tsk. You silly girl.”? NO THANK YOU. The plot also sounds like a joke. Still going to read it.

    “And then, to make matters worse, she’s all strung out over liking him when she still loves Nick, her living boyfriend who officially became ex WHEN SHE DIED. Girl, prioritize. You are freshly dead and stuck in the worst afterlife ever, you’re acting like you’re Elena and this is some kind of dramatic-ass TVD love triangle when it is so emphatically not and, more importantly, YOU HAVE BIGGER ISSUES.”

    This paragraph is the purest gold of the pure gold tree (as is the rest of this review). Fabbity fab all around.

    Right on with the Dean gifs. That’s exactly how he’d react to the idea of meditation. Two stars seems very generous, tbh. I’m sorry you had this take up brain space. Book Bleach is on its way.

    • Meg Morley

      TOUCH IT ELLIS. Wow, that went sort of sideways immediately. MAD SKILLZ.

      I did find Ashes to Ashes to be a bit of a hot mess, it’s true, but it wasn’t all bad. I went 2 stars because it’s not like I hated it (unlike some books that will be reviewed soon) but I didn’t like it very much.

      Re: paragraph, *g* I had a rant and ran with it (but FOR REAL. SHE NEEDS TO STOP.)

  4. Hannah @ The Irish Banana Review

    I don’t do ghost books. I just don’t. No matter how epic the romance (or not in this case) or insane the plot, the main character is DEAD.

    DEAD.

    As in not gonna get a happily ever after. Unless it’s in the afterlife which is a whole other set of problems.

    Ghost books don’t work for me. But I adore your review nonetheless. 😀

    • Meg Morley

      This was one of my first forays into afterlife books (I think, Anna Dressed In Blood doesn’t really count because the MC is alive and I can’t think of any other ghost ones) and I don’t think they’re going to end up being my thing. You’re so right, HEAs are a lot trickier and less satisfying. Maybe a different book could have pulled it off, but this one was a bit of an eye roll 😐 Glad you liked the review!

  5. Sydney

    Yay for awesome sarcastic Dean gifs!
    Boo for bad book with cruddy romance!

    I’ve seen this book around, but the ghost idea turned me off. I’m glad I didn’t waste my time on it, that would have royally pissed me off.

    • Meg Morley

      Yay Dean! I am loving all of this Dean love. As for Ashes and Ashes, if ghosts aren’t your thing, I don’t think this will work for you so avoidance probably saved you some frustration.

  6. Neyra

    I love dean gifs! looks like i’ll be skipping this one. sorry, but i’m not into love triangles, especially when one is dead and has no chance whatsoever anymore -__-

    • Meg Morley

      The romantic drama was…questionable, yes. I get having feelings for the guy you loved before you died, but taking it to the point where you’re worried about what he thinks of you liking another ghost? I’m pretty sure he’s too torn up about you DYING to care too much about all that. Also, YOU’RE DEAD. Ugh, I’m getting agitated again.

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