Review: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

Title: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
Author: Lish McBride
Release Date: October 12, 2010
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
Pages: 343
My Rating: 3.5 stars

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he’s doing all right—until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak.

Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he’s a necromancer too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces... or else. 

With only a week to figure things out, Sam needs all the help he can get. Luckily he lives in Seattle, which has nearly as many paranormal types as it does coffee places. But even with newfound friends, will Sam be able to save his skin? - Goodreads

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is the story of a boy, Sam, who starts to discover new things about the world he's lived in his whole life.. and about himself. One fateful day, he's playing a game of potato hockey, which is not unusual or anything, and a car's tail light gets broken. Oops, that sucks, but what's done is done, right? Unfortunately for Sam, the owner of the car, Douglas, isn't your average guy, but rather a total and complete creep who's eyes you do not want on you. Said creep is actually a necromancer, and apparently Sam is too. Douglas will do anything in his power (this is kind of punny.. because of his raising the dead power and.. okay, yeah, nevermind) to get Sam to come to the dark side. When I say anything, I mean anything. 

This book was written in chapters alternating between Sam's first person narrative and a third person point of view of some of the other characters, Douglas included, so that was plenty refreshing from the usual completely first person writing style. There was also tons of humor to balance everything out, and for the most part the writing was very laid back and made the dialogue seem teenager-like. (Good thing!) And while there were some pretty dark descriptions here and there, it never got excessively freaky or anything. 

That being said, I didn't enjoy reading it nearly as much as I was hoping. The plot simply seemed lacking to me, and I was constantly thinking that something more was bound to happen, because that just couldn't be it. There weren't really any plot twists, so that was definitely a bummer. For me, the story line just didn't stand out. That doesn't mean it wasn't interesting, though, but I guess the topic didn't entertain me like I thought it would.

Overall, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is a pretty average read, in my eyes. It does have plenty of funny parts that might make you laugh out loud and it heavily revolves around supernatural and paranormal things, so if you're into that type of thing, and looking for a light read, you should think about checking it out!