Book Review: Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson

 

Jet is a procrastinator, still waiting for her life to begin. But after a violent attack on Halloween, Jet's time has run out. With doctors certain she'll die in seven days, she decides to finally do something worthwhile, the last thing she'll ever do - solve her own murder.

I'm a fan of Holly Jackson and have read all of her novels, so reading this one was a no-brainer. But the premise itself was so interesting that I probably would have picked it up anyway.

It took me a while to get into this book, but when I did, I absolutely loved it!

One of my main issues at the beginning of the book had to do with Jet as a character. She felt a lot younger than she actually was, and while I really like reading books about protagonists in their late 20s and older, reading this still felt like reading YA, which felt a bit jarring.

You don't really get to know most of the characters, and of the few that you do, it takes a long time. And when you don't know them, it's hard to care about them.

Up until the halfway point it felt like things were dragging a bit. It was interesting to put the pieces of the mystery together, but it felt like there were a few too many pieces.

It didn't always feel realistic, and a lot of things are figured out based on coincidence, which made some situations feel a bit convenient all in all.

But after about the halfway mark things started to change.

For one, the relationship between Jet and her best friend, Billy, really grew on me the more I saw of them. I started off not really feeling anything towards them, and ended up really loving them.

The idea is so original and creative, and the more you get into it, the better it gets.

All of the suspects feel like they would be unexpected, which makes the actual reveal hopeful. For a really long time, I couldn't guess who the murderer would be. And even when I eventually guessed near the end, it was still fun to figure out.

But in saying that, I did find that it took too long to come to conclusions that the reader had already guessed. For example, if one character has a bruised face, and another has bruised knuckles, why does it take so long to connect the two?

For about 3/4 of the book, I was going to give it 3.5 stars, because as much as I was liking the story, it felt like there was something missing. And then the end came.

I thought the end of this book was amazing. It took me by surprise, it made me emotional, it hit me in ways I didn't expect, and was so much more powerful than the rest of the story suggested it would be. And for that it definitely gets an extra star.

So overall, I liked the majority of the book, but I really loved the ending, so I'd definitely recommend it!

4.5/5