Graveminder by Melissa Marr

Pages (Hardcover): 336 pages

Publisher: William Morrow

Released: May 17, 2011

Description: Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the tender attention her grandmother, Maylene, bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn't a funeral that Maylene didn't attend, and at each Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: three sips from a small silver flask followed by the words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."

Now Maylene is dead and Bek must go back to the place--and the man--she left a decade ago. But what she soon discovers is that Maylene was murdered and that there was good reason for her odd traditions. It turns out that in placid Claysville, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected. Beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D--a place from which the dead will return if their graves are not properly minded. Only the Graveminder, a Barrow woman, and the current Undertaker, Byron, can set things to right once the dead begin to walk.

Review: Angst, when it comes to teens, is normal. When it comes to adult novels, it's annoying. And when both of the main characters are filled with it for the majority of the book, I'm not a happy reader. Sadly, the other characters, minus Liz and Daisha, were flat and one dimensional. The plot had great ideas and I was excited to read this, but execution wasn't there.

Grade: 1 lines out of 10