If you would have asked me prior to reading this how I felt about a ghost story, I would have responded with a shudder and a pained look. Luckily, I trust Ms. McGuire and read this one anyway.

Who freakin' knew?! As always in her books, she found a unique angle with stellar world building (on top of ours) and a twist that you wouldn't expect. Even the love angle has a twist so twisty that I'm sure there's another word for it.

This book is straight UF, not horror. But whatever the case it is a great story.

If you haven't read anything else by this woman, go buy it all. Worth every penny and then some. ( )

I'm not really a fan of short stories, but together in a book it did sort of work. It's fairly quiet, nothing exciting, but there were times when I felt like that. I enjoyed it. ( )

So you've heard the story about Rose Marshall right? How she died on the way to her prom and became a ghost? Some say she leads men to their deaths when they offer her a ride, others claim she's only trying to save the ones who aren't too far gone. Whatever you've heard this is her story; the story of how a small town 16 year old girl who just wanted more from life could turn into an urban legend everybody knew.

Unlike a lot of folk going into this book cold I knew that the "Rose Marshall" stories were episodic and at one time spread across the internet as far as possible. I went into the book knowing this and thus wasn't surprised or irritated by the repetition from time to time. Rose spends half of her time educating the reader (or newly dead) on what it means to live in the Twilight. What you lose, what you gain, what the rules are that govern those who travel the Ghost Roads.

Rose is a "Hitcher" or a "Hitchhiker", she's drawn to those who live their life on the road or will die because of it. That young girl you see on the side of some lonely back road or hanging at a diner off the beaten track? Probably Rose. She'll hitch a ride to get to where she needs to go and maybe, if you're very lucky and your time hasn't come, she can even prevent you from dying on the road.

As she explains the stories aren't told in a very linear fashion, not til closer to the end when they begin to bleed into one and other and you can't have one without the other. By in large a good half of the book can be read in whatever order you want. I'm not sure if MacGuire (or her editor or Publisher) decided to mix them up even more. What I can say is that some details you'll read about in one chapter, you won't find out the truth of the tale until a later chapter. And some truths are harder to handle then others.

Woven throughout is Rose's crusade to stop "Bobby Cross" (the man who killed her to become an immortal legend) and her resolve to prevent him from doing to others what he did to her. Sometimes she's successful, other times she's not, but through it all she has a grim determination and resolve. Its more then revenge, though several characters ask her if that's what it is to her. She found a purpose in her aimless wandering after life and she was bound and determined to make it through.

I really liked Rose--she's much more practical and pragmatic then many of the characters running around in fiction, especially of those who are "teenagers", but not really (looking at you every single teen vampire/immortal out there). She didn't stay "stuck" in time, she moved on, she grew and expanded and learned how to work the system. She's not without her flaws of course, and we see as she makes mistakes that she later reflects on and realize it was really dumb to not notice the issues, but she felt so very real.

Insofar as other recurring characters go there are a few--Emma, the bean sidhe who Rose befriends, Tommy who she once asked for a ride from, Bobby Cross who we don't meet in the "flesh" until later in the book but who's shadow is long and dark. Emma is likeable and given more depth then either Tommy or Bobby in my opinion. Bobby is...he's portrayed as a certain kind of guy who many of us know or know of.

There's some loose-ish ends that don't get as much tying up, comments from Rose that drift away as her confrontation with Bobby looms, snippets of conversations that she doesn't focus on in her pursuit. And this book can get downright creepy and spooky, though I found myself feeling sorry for many of the people Rose comes across. Some of them just don't know any better, which is sad and pitiful no matter if you are alive or dead. ( )

Pretty good

Not my usual type of story but I really enjoyed it. I love how she fleshed the legends of the highway ( )

I was skeptical because of the short story collection nature of the book but it turns out that's the part I enjoyed the most; the individual sub-plots of each short story.

Initially, the rules around the ghosts are very vague. There are a few universal rules we learn throughout the book but around the middle of the book, something unfortunate becomes apparent. The author invents new rules and exceptions as she needs them on the fly.
This is always something that annoys me a lot because it makes it really hard to buy into tension because I always know the author could at any time just make stuff up on the spot to resolve any situation however she wants.

The end was just too much for me. It was too cheesy, too whacky, and way too far-fetched.
Beyond that, I just plain didn't like the end but that is entirely subjective taste.

Edit: Something that I forgot to mention is the ability of the author to build a certain surreal atmosphere. This reads not at all like some generic UF. It is a very unique experience and even though I didn't like the ending I don't regret having picked up this book. ( )