The Moment Collector

The Moment Collector by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Title: The Moment Collector

Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson

Publishing Date: August 7th 2014

Publisher: Orchard Books

ISBN: 1476706891  

Provided by: Hachette Children's Books & Netgalley

Summary (via Goodreads)

"The yard of this house is a graveyard of moments and everything left behind is a clue. And I am here to dig."

There's a ghost haunting 208 Water Street. She doesn't know who she was, or why she's still here. She does know that she is drawn to Maggie, the new girl in town, and her friends - beautiful, carefree Pauline and Liam, the boy who loves her.
But the ghost isn't all that's lurking in Gill Creek... Someone is killing young girls all across the county. Can the ghost keep these three friends safe? Or does she have another purpose?

Review

Blinded by a pretty cover I was only ever going to be disappointed with this book but it still makes me feel a little sad that it just wasn't that interesting! I mean, don't get me wrong it wasn't bad either, it just lost momentum somewhere around the middle and didn't really pick up again until the end... and even that was predictable.

The story itself is split into two. The majority of it is told in third person about Maggie, Liam and Pauline as they develop a friendship - that is destined to end tragically - in a time when a serial killer is on the rampage. The other part comes in sparse snippets that tells the same story from the point of view of a ghost living in Maggie's house on Water Street. These small gems where my favourite part of the book, they were haunting and probably one of the only reasons I read on. Although, they gave the ending away much sooner than a book like this should. After all you read a book because you want to know how it ends, what's the point if you've figured it all out be the end of Chapter 17?

Now, on paper it actually sounds like an intriguing read. It sounds like it should have been a new favourite of mine. On paper it had everything - except a gripping plot. The mystery is lost pretty early on and while reading I felt that the author kind of swept one of the main story lines into a nice neat pile. When in fact it could have seeped into every page and created a truly terrifying and heartbreaking story. But instead we were left with the focus on three teenagers who in retrospect really didn't get up to anything of much interest.

The killings should have been woven into the story better. As it is, I felt like dead bodies were just randomly plonked into the page - they didn't even have any real impact on the main characters, and without the whole mass murder concept everything still would have turned out the same. Which was probably the most disappointing thing about this book.

As far as the characters? They were okay, but I didn't love any of them. I have a lot of sympathy towards Maggie but the Pauline and Liam character's are ones I've read a hundred times before. So in all honesty I don't have much to say about them.

Overall this book wasn't for me. It should have been, but I found it all too predictable. I think that this may be a suitable read for younger YA readers? But I fear that anyone over the age of 16 will loose interest in the story line by chapter 13.

**I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley to read & review. This is a 100% honest review.**