This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce
Seventeen-year-old Joe Gray has just moved to a new town with her mother, where she doesn’t know anybody and will have to start at a new school and make new friends. While helping a neighbour, she meets a handsome and mysterious boy in the cemetery. Tristan behaves in an odd, old-fashioned way and never seems to hang out anywhere other than the cemetery. Then, on New Year’s Eve, Joe learns the reasons why – Tristan is a ghost. That evening, Tristan tries a spell he has heard of, and finds himself alive again. Only he is now bonded to Joe and they must remain close.
But Tristan shouldn’t be alive and a cloaked figure is hunting him down to ‘fix’ the problem.
I was looking forward to reading The Lost Boys as it sounded intriguing, in a Twilight kind of way but with the twist of Tristan being a ghost. I wasn’t sure how that would work, but it soon transpired that Tristan would be brought to life again. The book is a YA novel, with the voice representing this, but I found it pretty annoying at times, particularly the overuse of exclamation marks and the stammering throughout. I was put off Joe almost immediately with the major chip on her shoulder about her name. She gets very annoyed whenever she introduces herself, as people always tell her that Joe is a boy’s name, which would be understandable if there wasn’t also the feminine Jo. How did people know how she spelled her name when she spoke it? It made no sense to me at all, so it was rather off putting when the issue was raised again and again.
I thought the story might pick up when Joe starts at her new school and makes friends, but while the overall story is quite interesting, the style of writing didn’t suit me at all.
6/10