Ageless Pages Reviews: Book Tour Review: Remembrance by Meg Cabot

Title: Remembrance
Author: Meg Cabot
Genre: supernatural
Series: The Mediator #7
Pages: 388
Source: TLC Book Tours for review
Rating: 3/5

Fifteen years after the release of the first Mediator novel, #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot returns with a deliciously sexy new entry to a fan-favorite series. Suze Simon—all grown up and engaged to her once-ghostly soulmate—faces a vengeful spirit and an old enemy bent on ending Suze's wedded bliss before it begins.

You can take the boy out of the darkness.

But you can’t take the darkness out of the boy.

All Susannah Simon wants is to make a good impression at her first job since graduating from college (and since becoming engaged to Dr. Jesse de Silva).

But when she’s hired as a guidance counselor at her alma mater, she stumbles across a decade-old murder, and soon ancient history isn’t all that’s coming back to haunt her. Old ghosts as well as new ones are coming out of the woodwork, some to test her, some to vex her, and it isn’t only because she’s a mediator, gifted with second sight.

From a sophomore haunted by the murderous specter of a child, to ghosts of a very different kind—including Paul Slater, Suze’s ex, who shows up to make a bargain Suze is certain must have come from the Devil himself—Suze isn’t sure she’ll make it through the semester, let alone to her wedding night.

Suze is used to striking first and asking questions later. But what happens when ghosts from her past—including one she found nearly impossible to resist—strike first?

What happens when old ghosts come back to haunt you?

If you’re a mediator, you might have to kick a little ass.

It's been a few years since I marathoned the first six of the Mediator novels, but when I heard Suze Simon was coming back in an adult novel, I was ready to dive into whatever mayhem and paranormal weirdness she had to deal with. Remembrance was, in a lot of ways, a return to form for the sarcastic mediator; there are ghosts and mysteries and lots of sexual tension between Jesse and Suze. However, I can't say that Remembrance is a perfect novel; the plot is unfortunately flimsy and hinges on one of my least favorite plot devices, and Suze... well, I had issues with her, too, sadly enough. Overall, this wasn't bad but it's definitely a "damn with faint praise" kind of return to my favorite Cabot series.

Suze's voice is as Suze as ever, but with more of an edge now that she's left her teens and is figuring out how to be an adult (hint: lots of wine and cussing. My kinda gal.) However, Suze is often very frustrating throughout this book. She makes dumb decisions for dumb reasons and then doubles down on those decisions when given the opportunity to fix them. It is impossible to protect or help someone when you keep them totally in the dark, especially if they are the person at risk. For that reason the entire "you can take the boy out of the darkness" plotline fails pretty spectacularly for me as a reader. Failing to communicate as a means to foster plot porgression is a lazy way to create tension between characters. I hate it in YA and I hate it here, too.

The supernatural plotline holds together much better than its mundane counterpart. Probably because Suze is at her best when she is kicking ass and stomping around in her prized boots. When she wasn't losing her brain over "dealing" with Paul's frankly disgusting "bargain", Suze was much more in the spirit of her teen self. The overall conclusion to Lucia's story felt somewhat pat and easy, but it fit within the story and was handled much better than the Paul plot. Paul remains a one-note villain, easy to hate, easy to forget. The only characters with any real life in this are those of Suze and Jesse. Gina, CeeCee, Debbie, David, etc. all feel pretty one-dimensional, as well. I expected more from Cabot, especially with this beloved crew of friends.

I wanted to love this novel but sadly Remembrance and I are destined to remain just friends. It wasn't a hard read but it just felt so flimsy, and thus so unnecessary. There were moments of humor and a good twist or two to commend it but not enough to leverage more than 3 stars. There were no real emotions while reading the majority of the pages; the closest I got was the final chapters and that was expected because it had six and a half books of buildup to create those feelings. The plotlines that were introduced here were not fully concluded and still manage to feel forgettable and unimaginative. I did like the book for the most part, but it was a wholly average read.