When by Victoria Laurie

Maddie Fynn is a shy high school junior, cursed with an eerie intuitive ability: she sees a series of unique digits hovering above the foreheads of each person she encounters. Her earliest memories are marked by these numbers, but it takes her father’s premature death for Maddie and her family to realize that these mysterious digits are actually death dates, and just like birthdays, everyone has one.

Forced by her alcoholic mother to use her ability to make extra money, Maddie identifies the quickly approaching death date of one client's young son, but because her ability only allows her to see the when and not the how, she’s unable to offer any more insight. When the boy goes missing on that exact date, law enforcement turns to Maddie.

This was a lot better than I expected it to be.  That sounds a bit mean, but this book had the potential to be quite maudlin and a bit cliched, but actually what I got was a mildly snarky protagonist who made sometimes-good-sometimes-bad decisions and a fairly spooky murder mystery into the bargain.  So yeah, I was quite pleased in the end.

This isn't the first time I've read books where the protagonist can see people's death dates hovering over their heads, but it didn't feel tired.  I liked her awful relationship with her mum and the good relationship she had with her uncle.  The bullying storyline was dealt with well and the murder mystery had me guessing right up to the end.

I think Stubby's storyline was wrapped up a bit too neatly in the end and I got annoyed by some of her decisions, but on the whole this was pretty good.

4 stars