Imagine you've been estranged from your best friend for a year when they burst back into your life in the form of a resurrected corpse on the night before their funeral. That's what happens to Dino when he decides to reluctantly fix July Cooper's makeup in the basement of his family's mortuary. Dino and July haven't spoken since their rift a year ago, but with only the two of them in on the secret of her zombie resurrection, they have no choice but to work through their baggage while they try to figure out what to do. This is a surprisingly deep coming-of-age story about coming out, friendship, apologies, empathy, and figuring out who you are. And all the while, one of the main characters is decomposing.

This ALMOST did it for me. ALMOST.

But I couldn't get past the magical realism!!! It was too in the middle! It was such a darn cool concept, but Hutchinson did too much with it and didn't do enough with it to make it worth it!!! I would have been okay if JUST July had been alive. I would have been okay if this was a sci-fi/magical realism book that delved into uh, hello, the world freaking out because people weren't dying??? But that everyone in the world stopped dying for a week and no one was freaking out about it and July's family didn't think "well darn, too bad July stayed dead" was just the right amount of wrong for me to suspend my disbelief. Half the book I was thinking about this concept and how cool it would be to further explore that. Sigh.

Other than that, this was really fun, and made some excellent points about being sensitive and making tasteful jokes that I thought did a really good job. I adored the way the characters interacted, and the slight bit of ridiculousness. And the fact that July sold Dino's test to buy him concert tickets is the sweetest/most infuriating thing ever. Love that. ( )

I enjoyed this book. I liked the focus on friendship, and there were some clever lines and moments. However, I never felt truly invested in the characters and their relationships. Overall, I would recommend it to YA fans looking for a story about friendship. ( )

DNF at 68 pages. Hutchinson's characterisation of high school teens is just... not for me. This is my second attempt at one of his books and, about the same number of pages in as the last book, I'm calling it. Both of these main characters are obnoxious and whiney, but in different ways. The undead girl is hopelessly cruel and impatient making me want to throttle her and just EXPLAIN what she means instead of becoming automatically on the defensive and back-talking to her friend trying to help her. It's immediately obvious to me why these two are no longer friends and I put the blame almost solely on her. These are the types of teens I loathe. I'm just too old for this. ( )

teen fiction w/undead ex-best friend and LGBTQA interest (main character is gay; his boyfriend is trans), touches on mental health/depression/suicide.
The conversation about having control over one's own feelings (as opposed to being able to control other peoples' feelings) could've been handled a little more sensitively, considering that one of the minor characters had an eating disorder and another, unnamed minor character was clinically depressed and suicidal--there can be chemical imbalances and other reasons why a person cannot just "get over" their mental health issues. I don't think the author meant it that way, I've just become more aware of how we talk about these things lately. ( )