Anya's Ghost

Name: Serina

Grade: College

Title: Anya's Ghost

Author: Vera Brosgol

Anya is an average teenager, who is embarrassed by her Russian heritage, worried about her image, and is very conscious about her body weight. Though she tries hard to have nothing to do with being Russian, even going so far as to practice losing her accent and not associating with the only other Russian boy in her school- partially due to his nerdy behavior- and constantly watches what she eats, Anya just doesn't fit in as much as she would like to. Her crush Sean has a beautiful, popular girlfriend, and doesn't even seem to notice her existence. On one particularly bad day, Anya has a fight with her only friend about cigarettes while waiting for the bus to her school, and she ends up storming off by herself in frustration to a nearby park. Emotionally compromised and not looking where she is going, Anya takes a tumble down a deep hole, which is actually an old well. When she wakes up at the bottom, she is mortified to discover a skeleton across from her, but even more terrifying is the apparition attached to the old bones. Emily, as the ghost calls herself, has been dead for nearly ninety years and no one has ever found her body. Sheis unable to leave the well because she has to remain near her bones. She forlornly tells Anya of her tragic past, where the love of her life was killed during WWI, and how she couldn't call for help after falling into the well because she 'landed wrong' and broke her neck, eventually dying of thirst. However, Anya has a bit more luck than Emily when she is able to catch the attention of a punk rocker passing by who threw a can down the well. After two days in the dark, Anya is hoisted to safety, leaving Emily and her skeleton behind. Or so she thinks. It turns out that Emily's pinky bone accidentally ended up in Anya's bag, so now she is able to follow Anya around. At first Anya is reluctant company, but Emily comes in handy on tests and even helps Anya to be noticed by her crush, so Anya decides the ghost can stick around. But the more Anya gets to know Emily, the more she begins to suspect that she isn't telling her the truth about everything... It just may be that Emily wants Anya to live the life that she never had, regardless of what Anya wants for herself, and anyone who denies Emily could be in danger of the deadliest kind.

I picked this book up because it was a comicbook and looked interesting.

I finished this book because I had to know what happened.

I'd give this book to any teenage girl who feels like she doesn't belong.

Rating: **** really liked it.