Review: Freaksville- by Kitty Keswick

High school is hard enough when you’re normal. There’s peer pressure, book reports, the in crowd and the enormous zit that has a life of its own. Having a family whose skeletons in the closet lean toward the paranormal is not a topper on anyone’s list. Sophomore Kasey Maxwell is busy juggling the typical teen angst. Add visions, ghosts and hairy four-legged monsters into the mix and you get FREAKSVILLE. It’s a wonder Kasey has survived.

Every woman in the Maxwell family has the gift of sight. A talent sixteen-year-old Kasey would gladly give up. All she wants is a normal life. Shopping and talking about boys with her best friend and long-time sidekick Gillie Godshall consume her days. Until Kasey has a vision about Josh Johnstone, the foreign exchange student from England. The vision leads her into new waters, a lead in a play, a haunted theater…and into the arms of the Josh. Yet, both Kasey and Josh have secrets lurking in dark corners. Can Kasey’s new romance survive FREAKSVILLE?

Kasey’s Blog:

Ack! I’m in Freaksville! On my sixteenth birthday what did I get? A car? A pony? No. I got the gift of sight. Soooo not fair! It’s a gift I totally wish I had a receipt for…I’d return to sender. I didn’t ask to be freak girl. The kicker is if I touch something I get visions. Now why couldn’t I turn invisible? That’s a gift I could use. Sheesh. If it wasn’t for my BFF Gillie I’d go insane. That was until I touched a pencil belonging to Josh-Hottie-Foreign-Exchange-Student-from-England. He’s sooo cute, jet-black hair, bright blue eyes…whenever I’m around him my stomach does backflips.

Kasey’s Fab Five Favs
1. The British accent…and snogging. It sounds gross, but believe me it isn’t.
2. Cute guy in English class. (Josh)
3. Snogging…again, believe me, it rocks!
4. Shopping ’til I melt into the mall. (A given.)
5. Oh yes and snogging, smooching, kissing Josh!
XOXOX - Kasey
(Blurb from Kitty Keswick's website.)

Freaksville is the debut novel in the Young Adult Paranormal Romance series by Kitty Keswick. Kasey Maxwell is a sixteen year old who has the gift of sight or visions. It is these visions that kick things of in the beginning of the book. Kasey has a vision of Josh Johnstone, the gorgeous English exchange student, on the ground and in pain. She ends up following him around. This leads to her talking to him, accidentally trying out for the school play, kissing him, and finding a ghost.

From there things just get a bit more freaky. Kasey and her best friend Gillie try to figure out what is going on with the ghosts, while Kasey tries to start a relationship with Josh. As it turns out, Josh comes from a family in a long ongoing feud with her family, so Kasey's dad is just thrilled about them spending time together (voice dripping with sarcasm there people). All the while, Kasey knows that there is more supernatural stuff going on in her family than people are telling her, but what could it possibly be?

This book is written from Kasey's POV in blog format. I normally can't stand books written like this, with very few exceptions. This is an exception. I really enjoyed this book! It does seem strange, and unsafe for anyone who might want to divulge every bit of their personal life in a blog, that she seems to put a lot of information out on the internet. You can tell in the comments at the end of some of the chapters that some of the people know who she is and what she's talking about. That also isn't the most secretive way to go about recording your paranormal existence, but whatever, it isn't overly important to the storyline, so that's okay I guess.

I really liked all the characters over all. Kasey and Gillie's friendship was great. It did start to get slightly overshadowed by boys when they both have their first guys, but like most people learn to do, they learn to balance a little and remember their friends. Josh was a wonderful character. Teenage me would have been totally in love! His friend Gunter was adorable, and I laughed out loud when Kasey said Thumper.

The plot was somewhat predictable at times, but it still flowed really well. I did want to shake Kasey once or twice when she would have a vision and rationalize why she was seeing something instead of paying attention to what she was seeing. I'm also very curious as to the motivations behind one villain and hope to learn more about that in coming books.

So, if you want a new author and a new YA series to read, I say you check out this one, I enjoyed it immensely, and it was a fast easy read. Great characters, great plot, and such a wonderful base to this world that can be built upon in future books! There is so much room for growth in this series! I can't wait to learn more!