What if there was a school for the supernatural? Ginger High by Melissa Burmester is just that. Former Ginger High students Matthias and Amanta are called back to this mysterious school (from a parallel dimension called Animist) to find a killer at the school. However, the mysterious deaths happening at Ginger High don't concern new student Daisy Fisher who is more worried about discovering what her supernatural powers are. If Daisy doesn't find out her powers soon, the principal says he will kill her. Will Daisy find out her powers, and will Matthias and Amanta find out the killer's identity? The world of Animist is also at war, but what does all this have to do with Ginger High? Read to find out. . . .
Ginger High by Melissa Burmester is not the most well-written book, but it has an enormous amount of potential. For a book written by a 14-year-old, it was pretty good. Burmester's creativity and plot twists were some of the most interesting parts of Ginger High, but I'm sad to say that her writing was sort of choppy and unfinished. She'd start with one really good plot twist, but then she would end the chapter and leave the twist just hanging there, not bringing it to conclusion of any sort in the next. She would also begin describing a character's flashback and then suddenly interrupt it with the character's present thoughts and actions. I've seen this technique used well in other books, but Burmester's skills just seemed to lack the maturity needed to pull this off without confusing readers. Also, in the first part of the book, Burmester writes about a little girl getting attacked, and then she goes straight to Amanta and Matthias in school at Ginger High. The little girl was mentioned at the end of the story, but she really didn't have a significant role in the plot. Burmester presented many good ideas, but she just did not know how to incorporate them completely into her novel. Another downfall was her characters were really hard to imagine. She didn't describe their physical appearances very well. Instead she described her characters' actions and how they interacted with the other characters, but this just didn't seem as in-depth as readers might like. Describing the school is another thing that could have used more work. Burmester talked about the rooms and the decor somewhat but never described where everything was located to help the readers really SEE the school. Melissa Burmester can definitely become a very accomplished fantasy writer; she just needs more practice at finishing the ideas she presents to the readers. With such improvements, the sequel to Ginger could be great.
Reviewer Age:14
Reviewer City, State and Country: Paynesville, MN USA
