[Review] It's a Wonderful Death - Sarah J. Schmitt

This book I got from a different site this time. I don't know how requests work and the time I decided to test I was lucky the one title that caught my eyes was free for immediate download. Yay!

RJ is an inconvenient queen bee whose soul is collected by mistake. Unlike others reaped, she is fully aware of her surrounds and will take it to the final consequences to see the unfairness fixed and her life restored. The catch is that such has never been done and the guys in the Afterlife are less than willing to open a precedent, which could cause an upheaval among those who believe to also be entitled to a second chance in life.

This is probably an YA for a younger audience, despite some harsh themes such as disease, death and depression. The discussion and lessons that come from reading these would help those in their earlier teens, such as middle school age, I believe.

My first impression is that such an instigating theme deserved better edition. Until I got used to the style, many actions and dialogs felt abrupt, and I had to read through whole scenes too many times to my taste. For a less interesting or less entertaining story, I may have given up before getting into what the author wanted to tell me.

Now this is mostly the author to blame, the beginning was ideal in pace but the elements presented in her world-building were far from original. I saw a mix of contemporaneous and classic plots mixed, and not on purpose. The book as a whole has a love of creative points but they were all after at least a third of the book, consisting its beginning of a replay of some TV movie.

Last negative was the main character. I did come to rather like RJ, though it took too long. Characters would criticize her for being stubborn when I would probably have complained the same or even more, I think she was entitled to a second right away and they barely recognize their fault at that. RJ came off as annoying when she wasn't supposed to be. Perhaps this could have been fixed with a more thorough revision as I first suggested. It's funny to note that I started appreciating her more when she really misbehaved. I couldn't stop laughing at her dialogs with Death Himself and at how much she was able to upset the other angels.

And talking about them, Death Himself and all the non-human characters were very well delivered. I looked forward mostly to their scenes instead of the ones in RJ's life.

Though I recommended more editing, I found the author's style to be the highest point. She got me to laugh my heart out and then cry that all away. Lighthearted and yet endearing. Her narrative was so easy on the eyes I spent hours reading nonstop until the end. Her sense of irony is also something to look forward to, might I add.

Also the ending, of course I won't reveal it here, but it was very satisfactory. I would have shortened the book, I felt it was too long and this ending that never ended would have probably been the part that suffered more. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have changed any points of the plot, it was simply perfect to the tone the author used the entire book. I certainly recommend this, and want to follow this author's works in the future.

Rate: 4 out of 5.