A Certain Slant of Light (Light 1) by Laura Whitcomb

In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen–terrified, but intrigued–is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess. (Goodreads)

Helen has been a ghost for 130 years and to live relatively normal life, she attach herself to humans. Her current host is a teacher and one day at a class she meets a boy who can see her. The boy, James, is a spirit who took over a body when it was empty. After learning that taking over a body is possible, she takes over Jenny’s body.

Okay I have to say that I didn’t like this. At all. I had problems with the writing style which was too descriptive and it felt way too overworked.

His body didn’t die,” he said, still fascinated by his own luck. “His spirit chose to leave. It’s difficult to explain. Instead of the ship going down taking the crew with it, the crew abandoned the ship, but the ship was still seaworthy.
pg. 24

You would think that when you choose a body who you want to possess, you’d learn about the persons life a little. Like who’s the parents, are they alive you know important stuff? But no, you jump in to just a random person because that makes sense.

I was already bored and kept laughing out loud at some idiotic parts but when we meet Jenny’s family I nearly threw the book. They were some uber Christian family and we get to read about many prayers they had, the books she was supposed to read…. Nearly nodded off by then.

I just couldn’t make myself to care what happened with the characters and did not enjoy the book at all.

1/5
Published: HMH Books for Young Readers (2005)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 282
Source: my own