Shadowland

I’ve developed a really bad habit: book cheating.

Until recently, I’ve had impeccable reading etiquette. I never flip to the end of the book. I don’t cheat to see if the lovers reconcile or to discover who the murderer is. Instead, I read from cover to cover. It’s only right.

But lately I’ve found myself cheating. I can’t help it—it’s those pesky young adult serials I’ve been reading. They simply aren’t good enough to justify reading the whole series, but they are interesting enough that I want to know what happens. So I’ve started looking online to discover how the series end. I know, shameful.

I never should have started three YA series in one week. Such an overdose could only be dangerous. The latest culprit: Meg Cabot’s The Mediator series. I just finished the first book, Shadowland, and I had to know what happened to the protagonist, Suze, so I cheated.

Suze is a “mediator.” Basically, she is a teen Ghost Whisperer. I confess I have watched—and even enjoyed—the TV series, so I was a bit intrigued by the idea of a teenage girl who both sees ghosts and helps them “cross” to the other side.

The premise is interesting, and the book is a fairly entertaining read. However, it is not entertaining enough to persuade me to read the other five books in the series.

On the other hand, Suze happens to share her bedroom with a nineteenth-century-hottie-cowboy ghost. How could I not cheat to find out how the ghost and the teenage girl progress romantically?

Clearly, the cure to my problem is no more young adult serials.