{Synopsis} – Granted, Arielle has a vast, excitable imagination. But she's not imagining how strange and out of control her life becomes after the death by drowning of her older sister's best friend, Perdita. Not only does this death echo the death of Arielle's own older brother, ten years before, it leads to dreams and visions in which Perdita seems to be reaching out to Arielle, asking for her help. The only other explanation—that Arielle's high-strung emotions have finally caused her to break with reality—is even more terrifying. A story that builds to greater and greater heights of suspicion and fear, Perdita is also a multi-layered literary achievement that leaves no emotion untouched.
{My Thoughts} – Arielle is an interesting teenager. She seems to have an overactive imagination that at times terrifies her. She has concluded that she has the ability to see ghosts, but she doesn’t understand why those ghosts are wanting to hurt her.
The main plot of this book is about the death of Perdita, Arielle’s sisters best friend. Arielle killed herself or was killed by someone’s hand – she drowned in the lake not far from Arielle’s house. Arielle sees her body being taken out of the lake, she sees that it is Perdita. She goes home and she tells her parents and her sister. The word drown brings back terrible memories for the family. Arielle’s older brother had drowned at summer camp ten years before. Her family has never been able to move on from it, they have never been able to accept that they had nothing to do with his death, that there was no way it could have been prevented and that things do just happen.
In Perdita’s case though there is so much information being released that results in the police ruling in foul play. However, they have no leads and no way to know who killed her. They have no idea why she was there at the lake and they have no way to figure things out either.
Arielle starts school shortly after she dies. She ends up in classes with Perdita’s younger brother Tex. The two of them become close and yet push each other away at the same time. They end up having a sort of strange relationship that seems to have been built based on the death of his older sister.
Why was she at the lake that night? Why do the police think it was foul play? Who really knows what happened to her? What is going on with Arielle that she thinks she sees ghosts? Do the police every find out what really happened the night that Perdita had died?
This book sets you up to want a lot of things answered in a short amount of time. However, once things start to unravel it becomes almost predictable where the story line is going. I think that is the only thing I didn’t like about the book, how predictable it became as I was reading it.
I think that anyone that has lost a close friend and is struggling with themselves will enjoy reading this book. It is nicely written, it just lacked the twist element that you’d expect in a mystery book.
Final Conclusion: 5 Star Rating.
