Remembrance - Meg Cabot

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. 

Check out my series rewind for the Mediator: pt 1  pt 2

* 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!

Series Rewind - The Mediator series part 2

The Mediator by Meg Cabot

(Part 1 is right over here)

Part 2

Darkest Hour

Suze gets a summer job at a country club babysitting an annoying kid whose family doesn't like him that much and he doesn't like to leave their room.  Turns out he's a little baby mediator.  Also, Jesse's ex reappears with a vengeance.  Oof, it's called REST in peace, honey, relax would you?  While doing some renovations in the backyard, Andy digs up Jesse's body and Jesse - gasp - disappears.  Suze loses it a little and decides to get herself exorcized to go find him.

The ghosts: 

Jorge - a gardener at the club.  The kid Suze babysits (Jack) sees him and admits that he can see ghosts.  Jorge just wants the rosary back that his sister took from their mother.  

Maria de Silva Diego - Jesse's former fiance shows up with a knife to Suze's throat while she's sleeping.  She warns her to tell Andy to stop the digging in the backyard and to hide the letters that have already been found.  Suze does basically the opposite of those things and Maria starts her reign of terror.

Diego - basically does Maria's dirty work, the hand to hand combat.

Jesse - Oh man, Jesse.  At about mid-book  Jesse disappears and Suze assumes that, even though he said he wouldn't leave if his body was found, his business is finished.  We come to find out that Maria tricked Jack into exorcising Jesse and Suze kind of loses her shit.  She wants Jack to exorcise her (have I mentioned that Jack is eight?), but Father Dom stops her.  He then grudgingly agrees to exorcise her - the good Christian way - and she finds Jesse.  She also finds Jack's older brother, Paul, in the in-between and he tries to keep them there - permanently.  This book ends with the long awaited kiss between Suze and Jesse (finally)!  My favorite Jesse moment in this book is when he finds Suze sleeping in David's room instead of her own, hiding from Maria, with an arsenal of weapons in the bed.

Haunted

Suze is still recovering from her trip to exorcism land.  Paul, another mediator (kind of), has conned his parents into letting him live with his grandpa so he can be a pain in Suze's ass full time.  He tells her that he knows a bunch of mediator stuff that even Father Dom doesn't know and she should make-out train with him.  AND SHE LISTENS.  Girl, I have never been more disappointed in you.  Also, she definitely lies to Jesse about Paul moving to town, which I'm not into.  In other news, Suze is up for reelection for class VP and the stepbros throw a little kegger when the parents are out of town.

The ghosts:

Craig - is haunting his brother after a catamaran accident that they were both in.  Craig believes himself to be the better swimmer and thinks his brother should be dead instead of him.

Biker Bob - Paul apparently has ghosts working for him.  Bob tries to keep Suze from leaving Paul's house, doesn't succeed, and Suze walks a very long distance, barefoot, to get away from Paul.

Jesse - One step forward, two steps back.  At the end of the last book Jesse and Suze kissed.  Now, they seem to be back to just roommates.  Come ooooonnnnnnnnnnn.  And THEN, Jesse goes and talks to Father Dom who convinces him to move out of Suze's room and into the rectory at school.  Father Dom WTF???  We don't get enough smooching as is, with him moving out to the school it'll never happen.  We also get hella jealous Jesse in this one, punching the crap out of Paul and I have to say, I approve this message.  Also, Suze and Jesse FINALLY TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS.  And the peasants rejoice.

Twilight

It seems that Paul has figured out that some mediators (shifters like him and Suze) can also shift through time.  Yikes.  He decides that instead of forcing Jesse to move on to get him away from Suze, he's going to go back in time and save his life.  This way he'll never become a ghost and he'll never meet Suze, much less fall in love with her.  Suze obviously doesn't want that to happen, so she had to find some way to stop Paul.

The ghosts:
Jesse - So this book is really all about Jesse.  He and Suze are together, but still having communication issues (grrr).  When he finds out Paul's plan he tells Suze that he can take care of himself (which she then disregards, of course).  Suze shifts back to the 1800s and gets to see Jesse in the flesh.  Once she meets him she decides she can't not save his life.  Diego comes for him, they fight, Diego falls.  Suze gets trapped in a burning barn and Jesse runs in to save her.  In the midst of escaping the fire Suze shifts back to her time, accidentally taking Jesse with her.  His body can't live in this time and they bring him to the hospital unconscious.  There Jesse's ghost reunites with his body and he wakes up a real live person!  And takes Suze to the dance!  And Father Dom is going to get him into college so he can one day become a doctor like he always dreamed of!  What a great end to the series (for now).
Mr. Simon - Suze's dad comes back and tells Suze to let Paul save Jesse's life, that he deserves another chance.  He also tells her that he doesn't want her to go back and try to save him either.  At the end of the book, he comes to the dance and we find out that he sent ghost Jesse to reunite with his body.  Suze gets to thank him and then he moves on for good.

Proposal

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

It's Valentine's Day and we're catching up with our favorite mediator.  Now in her last year of college, she's studying to become a school counselor.  AND she's still with Jesse (heart eye emoji), who's in med school a little ways away.  These two crazy kids decided to not celebrate Valentine's Day, so Suze goes out to deal with a ghost who's causing some mayhem that people are starting to notice.  Suze can't quite get the ghost under control so she goes home to regroup and who does she find in her room?  Jesse was trying to surprise her with a romantic picnic and a RING IN HIS POCKET.  They tackle the ghost problem together and Suze accepts Jesse's proposal.

The ghosts:
Mark Rodgers - destroyer of flowers left at his girlfriend's grave and people are starting to notice.  Suze tries to get him to move on, but accidentally lets slip that everyone thinks he caused the accident that killed him and his girlfriend.  He gets super mad and causes a big storm, then leaves to go find the person who really caused the accident.


So that's it for our first series rewind!  I had a blast reading this Meg Cabot series that I'd never read before, and I'm so looking forward to Remembrance.  Do you have any suggestions for future series that you'd like to see?  

Series Rewind: The Mediator

Series Rewind is a new feature here at Not-So Teen Reads.  There are a million series that I haven't read yet, so every once in a while I'm going to pick a series and do some type of mini-review on the whole thing.  First up:

The Mediator by Meg Cabot

This series will be split into two posts, but they should both be posted before Remembrance comes out on 2/2/16.  (Update: Part two is right here)  For every book I'm going to give a little bit of plot and a breakdown of the ghosts we encounter.

Shadowland:

Suze is awesome.  She's a mediator (duh), someone who helps ghosts move on from our world to the afterworld.  The series starts with her moving across the country when her mom remarries, into an old house (not so good for avoiding ghosts) with three new stepbrothers.  She very quickly acquires a Giles-like mentor in Father Dom, one of the teachers at her school.  There's a little bit of a cheese factor: Suze is from New York City.  She talks fast and wears leather jackets in California, but it was written in 2001, so I'm giving it a little bit of a pass.  My biggest praise about Suze is that she's so freaking awesome and she's not just Mia-light.  A lot of Meg Cabot's female leads that come after The Princess Diaries came out rely too much on Mia's personality to carry them through.  Suze is her own character.  She's weirdly obsessed with prom like Mia, but that's about it.

The ghosts:

Mr. Simon - Suze's dad, not seen, just mentioned.

Heather -  Dead girl at school, she's the reason that there was an empty spot in the school for Suze to fill.  This one made me feel a little squicky - she killed herself, reportedly over her boyfriend who broke up with her.  Now she hangs around the school, sort-of regretting her decision, definitely terrorizing her ex.

Jesse - Hottie hot hot cowboy ghost that resides in Suze's room.  I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.  

The Ninth Key:

Suze is sent on a mystery mission to tell someone named Red that he didn't kill a woman.  Ghosts, man.  So vague and dramatic.  While on the search, Suze gets tangled up with a man who may or may not be a vampire.  Now, this series is basically about ghosts, but the vampire thing really felt weird to me at first.

The ghosts:

Mr. Simon - Suze's dad makes an appearance!  He comes to check on Suze, give Jesse a talking to (LOL!), and warn Suze off of investigating on behalf of an unnamed woman.

Unnamed lady - Wakes Suze up twice by screaming her head off with very little info on what she wants.  I would have smacked the crap out of her.  Something was clearly up with this lady (who does, in fact, have a name), and it does come to light towards the end of the book.

Mrs. Fiske - Who I thought was the unnamed lady when she showed up, but I'm glad to know Suze thought so too.  Red Beaumont killed her for her land, or did he?  She was summoned by Cece's aunt and her tarot deck. 

Jesse - still lives in Suze's room and things are starting to get swoony.  Like, in the first book I could tell that I was supposed to think that, but now he's all sitting on her bed, holding her hand, and I am totally sold.  I laughed when he popped up when Suze was kissing Tad in his car.  Super helpful in the final "battle" of the book.

Reunion: 

Gina's here!  I appreciate that even though Suze moved clear across the country, it isn't like her past is totally wiped from the record.  Suze is trying to get rid of four ghosts that recently died in a car wreck that may not be as innocent as it first seems.  Also, Gina catches the eye of two of Suze's stepbrothers, while a geek becomes enamored with Suze.

The ghosts: 

RLS Angels - four popular kids from a rival school that recently died in car crash after a dance (Footloose anyone?).  Suze first catches them trying to steal beer from a convenience store on the beach.  Then, she catches them trying to drown one of her classmates.  You know, the usual.

Jesse - he's really becoming Suze's right hand.  He always shows up when she calls him, ready to help with whatever the situation is - even when it's babysitting four disgruntled teen ghosts.  Suze has started admitting to herself that she totally loves him.

It felt a little light on ghosts this book, but I think it's because the four Angels were always together.

That's it for the first installment of Series Rewind: The Mediator.  Be sure to check back next week for the conclusion!

Meg Cabot Read Along!

 The Meg Cabot Read-Along is hosted over at Book Club Girl!

How can I not throw my hat in this ring?  I've been meaning to read Queen of Babble forever and was definitely going to re-read the Heather Wells books before the new one came out anyway. 

Here's the schedule for anyone looking to join up:

• May 22th—Boy Next Door discussion on Book Club Girl
• June 12^th – Queen of Babble discussion on Book Club Girl
• July 3rd - Size 12 is Not Fat discussion on Book Club Girl
• July 10th -Size 12 and Ready to Rock goes on sale
• July 31st -Size 12 and Ready to Rock discussion on Book Club Girl on Air, post questions for Meg’s Book Club Girl On Air interview at 7PM

Look for updates along the way on Twitter (#megreadalong), and on the Book Club Girl Facebook page.

For more info click on the Book Club Girl link at the top of the post.  I can't wait to get started!