[REVIEW] The Haunting of Sunshine Girl

title: The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl #1)

author: Paige McKenzie, Alyssa B. Sheinmel 
genre: young adult, paranormal
published: March 24th 2015 by Hachette Books

my copy: eGalley, 411 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 2 / 5 stars
goodreads

Something freaky's going on with Sunshine's new house... there's the chill that wraps itself around her bones, the giggling she can hear in the dead of night, and then the strange shadows that lurk in her photographs. But the more weird stuff that happens, the less her mom believes her. Sunshine's always had a quirky affiliation with the past, but this time, history is getting much too close for comfort...

If there is something, or someone, haunting her house, what do they want? And what will they do if Sunshine can't help them?

As things become more frightening and dangerous, and the giggles she hears turn to sobs and screams, Sunshine has no choice but to accept what she is, face the test before her and save her mother from a fate worse than death.

The first in a frighteningly good new series based on the popular YouTube sensation The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Network, created by Paige McKenzie.

could be an interesting series.

I have ZERO expectations when I downloaded this book YEARS! Somehow, I don't even know why I downloaded this since I'm not even a fan of paranormal stuff in books. lmao.

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl follows Sunshine who moves to a new house and upon moving, she feels odd, cold, and hears things in their house. She's quite positive that their house is hunted but her mother just can't seem to see, feel, or remember anything odd happening. She meets Nolan who believes her ghost story and together, they discover more things not only about the ghost in her house but also why Sunshine can see and feel these ghosts.

Now, this books is absolutely not for me.

In general, this really felt very flat and boring, for me. Sunshine is a not-like-other-girls type of main character but that also is part of her characteristic as some kind of ghost hunter or luiseach as they call it. I didn't like Sunshine at all but it's definitely more of a me thing. How Sunshine took the entire hunted house and evil ghost kind of news in her new home definitely felt like a natural reaction to things. Although it did frustrated me lots of times because it did take more than half of the book to really get things going. There was a lot of build up / world building (?) regarding what's going on in Sunshine's house and the natures of luiseaches.

Another part of the book that feels like took a massive amount of part of it is the romance. There isn't like some actual, actual progression to it but you know it's there. You know it's there because you absolutely cannot miss it because it's like every chapter Sunshine talks about feeling nervous around Nolan, and how she kind of hesitate at saying what she and Nolan are (which.... uhhh.. Friends?). I'm sure there's a lot more times where I rolled my eyes while reading this because of this thing between the two of them. Nolan is a nice guy but younger me would also not be into him in terms of book boys just because he's just that, a nice guy who absolutely admires his grandfather.

However, I have to admit that Sunshine's narration kind of make things a bit better despite my frustrations on how slow the story is, and how much she talks about Nolan, and how much she talks about being "weird" and not being into what other teenagers her age are into. Aside from, as I said, her reaction towards everything did feel natural which I really like, I also like how she points out things to save you the eyerolling (the fact that she had to emphasize googling luiseach surprisingly works kind of made me laugh).

OVERALL, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl could be an interesting series. It's could be good depending on how it's written and where the story actually goes. But with what I've seen in here, I'd say it could be a typical battle of good and evil and ultimately saving the world and getting the boy (just like every other book, I guess). There's nothing exactly new in here. While it did feel really slow, it could still be enjoyable for a few people who likes characters that are very vocal about all their thoughts and very open about everything (there could be a massive amount of repetition, tbh). But for me, I won't be continuing with the series just because I think it's not worth it (and I wasn't a fan of the main character). 

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