Title: Remembrance (Mediator 7)Author: Meg Cabot
Pages: 338
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Source: ALA Midwinter 2016 (gifted, thanks Eileen!)
Goodreads rating:
About: 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.
* Spoilers beyond this point *
I didn't have to wait as long as most Mediator fans for this book, as I only read the series for the first time last month. Nonetheless, I was super excited to get to spend more time with Suze (and Jesse)! Remembrance takes place a little bit after Proposal: Suze is interning as a counselor at her alma mater (thanks to Father D) and hoping it will lead to a full time (read: paid) position while Jesse's doing his residency at a nearby hospital. We get updated on the whole gang: Gina tried to make it in Hollywood for a bit and is now taking a break, working at CeeCee's aunt's coffee shop and living with Suze. CeeCee's working for the town paper, writing the alumni newsletter, and still waiting for Adam to call (oh girl). The stepbrothers are still around: David's at college, Brad married Debbie (shocking) and they have triplets, and Jake became the medical marijuana king of Carmel. Of course, Paul is still around and he's still the worst, only now he's the worst with a shit ton of money.
Speaking of Paul - he buys Suze's old house and all the land around it just so he can knock it down. He wants to enact a curse on Jesse that makes him some kind of undead monster, just so he can blackmail Suze into being with him instead. Dude, get the eff over it, she has never been interested in you. (Okay, there was that one time that she was into the kissing, but she never actually liked him).
The ghost:
Lucia - Suze is counseling a student who cuts herself when she notices a little ghost girl following her around. Lucia loses her ghostly shit when she sees Suze cleaning Bianca's cut and thinks she's hurting her. She causes an earthquake at school and later tries to drown Suze in her apartment pool. This little girl means business. Lucia felt almost like a throwback to Heather from the first book, where the circumstances of the death may have been a little more serious than I would have expected from a Meg Cabot book.
I loved that it was acknowledged that Suze is an adult now and can't just ignore the rules of the real world in order to help a ghost move on. I also loved that Suze is still super impulsive and just does things how she thinks they need to be done. She's not perfect and she doesn't pretend to be, she just wants to get shit done the best way she can figure out - even if that way is a little crazy. The thing that drives me the most nuts in this whole series is that Suze has terrible communication problems. If she just told Jesse half the shit that was going on ever the drama would not get as bad as it does. I do appreciate though, that it is something that carries throughout the whole series.
I'm so glad that I've spent the better part of two weeks catching up with this series so I could barrel right on into this new installment. I'm super impressed by how there's no difference in tone from the older books to this one. It's been 10 years! I could understand if things felt a little different, but they don't and that's truly a testament to how well Meg Cabot knows her characters. Fingers crossed we get to catch up with these crazy kids again sometime!
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