Spookygirl is a fun, great read for kids of all ages, especially those interested in ghosts and ghost hunting. The characters are fun, and those characters that are a walking stereotype (like Cherry and Isobel) either are *supposed* to be that way, or end up breaking out of their molds later in the story.

What Violet found in the lockerroom turns out to be a surprise (and I have to admit, I kind of wanted it to actually be a Hell gate...because where better to have a Hell gate than a high school girls' locker room? My middle school locker room was set up eerily similar to Violet's, and I always found the showers to be a very spooky place, indeed.)

Spookygirl is a fresh insight into the world of YA literature, where storylines about how the plain, ugly girl ends up getting the boy of her dreams run rampant. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of that type of YA, as well, but it's nice to read a book every so often where romance (for the main character, anyway) isn't on the table as a storyline. Violet has too many ghosts in her life to even worry about live boys!

Overall, this was a fantastic book, congratulations to Jill for winning the ABNA Breakthrough Novel contest!