Review: The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee

Title: The Unquiet
Author: Jeannine Garsee
Genre: YA - Contemporary/Paranormal

"Sixteen-year-old Rinn Jacobs has secrets: One, she’s bipolar. Two, she killed her grandmother.

After a suicide attempt, and now her parents' separation, Rinn and her mom move from California to the rural Ohio town where her mother grew up. Back on her medications and hoping to stay well, Rinn settles into her new home, undaunted by the fact that the previous owner hanged herself in Rinn's bedroom. At school, her classmates believe the school pool is haunted by Annaliese, a girl who drowned there. But when a reckless séance goes awry, and terrible things start happening to her new friends—yet not to her—Rinn is determined to find out why she can’t be "touched" by Annaliese...or if Annaliese even exists.

With the help of Nate Brenner, the hunky “farmer boy” she’s rapidly falling for, Rinn devises a dangerous plan to uncover the truth. Soon reality and fantasy meld into one, till Rinn finds it nearly impossible to tell the difference. When a malevolent force threatens the lives of everyone she cares about--not to mention her own--she can't help wondering: who should she really be afraid of?

Annaliese? Or herself?" ~See it on Goodreads
 

--------------------------------------------------- 

 

When I first read the blurb for The Unquiet I was really intrigued by the premise of the story, so I was really looking forward to reading it. But unfortunately it fell a bit flat for me, maybe my expectations were a little too high so it didn’t really live up to them. I didn’t hate it, but then again it wasn’t one for the favorites list.

The mystery in the story was great (I’m a fan of that in books) but the pacing was just way too slow for my taste and it was hard to really get into the story when there weren’t any big changes or developments as I read. The ghost story aspect is one of the main things that drew me to this book in the first place but as I was reading the story felt more like a contemporary type high-school drama and that seemed to be the main focus. The ghost story IS there but it just took SO incredibly long to get to that part, and when it finally did I wasn’t as interested in it as I had been when I started the book so that was kind of disappointing.

As far as characters go, I really just wasn’t a fan of Rinn’s personality at all, yes she has a mental illness but that isn’t an exception. Most of the time she just came off as dull/boring, angry or mean without cause, and just plain bratty sometimes. She didn’t stand out or have any interesting quirks about her, and overall she just wasn’t really likeable and you need that in a character because without it you end up not really caring about what happens to them. Her so called “friends” were just as bad, they were really shallow and treated everyone (including Rinn) really poorly, and Rinn didn’t even stand up for herself or say anything to them about it because they were her new “friends” and I suppose she figures it’s better to have crappy friends than none at all?? Didn’t really make sense to me. And the overall high-school experience that was shown, the drama, and the way the characters interacted with each other just didn’t come off as very realistic to me.

The ghost story was good and I liked it a lot once that part came around, as well as the backstory about Rinn and her Grandmother. I thought the whole possessions aspect was really detailed and well developed. But I really wish there had been more to the paranormal side of the story, from reading the blurb I was definitely expecting it to focus more on that. I’m sure a lot of people will still like this book, but I really do think this qualifies as more of a contemporary story with a slight paranormal edge. If I had been expecting that I think I would have been able to get a little more into it.

2 Stars!