Absent by Katie Williams (review)

After just one misstep on the edge of the school roof during the traditional eggdrop experiment, Paige is dead. Unfortunately, she’s stuck roaming the grounds of the school where she died, accompanied only by Brooke, a girl who died of an overdose a few months before her, and Evan, a boy who killed himself years ago. Paige is still focused on high school drama, however, and particularly on Lucas, the popular jock whom with she was secretly having an affair. When a rumor arises that she killed herself she’s determined to quash it; she discovers she can enter and control other people’s bodies, so she uses that ability to spread counter-rumors and then to humiliate the classmate who insists that Paige deliberately jumped. As she literally gets under people’s skins, however, she begins to gain a little more perspective— and also realizes that there’s something stranger than simple haunting going on at her school. There are echoes of Our Town in Paige’s regretful visiting among the living, while her desperate insistence on being remembered—and how she is remembered—is keen, understandable, and teenageresque. The book is clearly aware both of the temptations and the ethical bankruptcy of her making other people do things to serve her purpose, and her harsh dismissals of some of her agemates make her realistically immature without completely forgoing reader sympathy. The twist at the end helps answer some niggling questions, but the story is less one of twisty mystery than post-mortem perspective. It’s also a quick and appealing tale, and it could draw reluctant as well as regular readers who’d like to imagine what their schoolmates would say about them after they’re gone.