The description of Bad Girl Gone by Temple Mathews is what initially drew me in. A girl, who does not remember dying, figures out she is dead and has to figure out why and how? This was unlike any book I had ever read or even thought of reading, but it sounded interesting. My murder/mystery loving self wanted to know what happen.

The story follows Echo, who wakes up in a strange orphanage like place, with a bunch of weird kids and circumstances. My first impression was confusion, but for once this didn't bother me because I felt like that was the point. Echo was confused, therefore we were confused. From there I absolutely loved the camaraderie around the group coming together and trying to solve the murders of their lives. The group was like the island of misfit toys, where all these different types of people with different walks of life and personalities are able to come together and help each other out.

On top of this youthful bonding and life lessons that author Mathews weaved into the story, we also have a murder to be solved. I did guess who was guilty as soon as they crossed my path as a reader, but it didn't ruin the rest of the story. The story flowed nicely and kept me interested all the way to the very end. I enjoyed the small glimpses back into Echo's life before she died and seeing what led her to where she was now. It was a full circle kind of story, which is not something a lot of authors do. It's a chunk of their life, but not beginning, middle, end. Temple Mathews is a writer to keep your eyes on. Bad Girl Gone has everything a young adult wants in a book, but also enjoyable for adults who want to read.

I will definitely be checking out more from Temple Mathews in the future.

Thank you for allowing me to read this early release so I can review. This book was worth the time just needed a bit more "something" to make it stand out

This was a solid coming of age (after dying, of course) novel that most teen girls will eat up. Echo was a normal teen with her life supposedly on the right track when she wakes up and finds that it is all over. She had the perfect boyfriend, the perfect family, and the perfect life in general. Echo strives to find who it was that murdered her and why. And she has found the perfect band of other murdered teens to help her out.
Echo learns that her life wasn’t exactly how she remembered it and that, if she could, she would change her previous actions. Her character gains depth and changes throughout the novel, growing into a more mature woman that understands how her choices affected other around her.
It was a great plot, set up, and group of characters that kept the story moving and will hook readers quickly. I would have liked to see more of the other kids get their murders solved and maybe more of a solid romance than one that seemed forced. Looking forward to seeing this jump off the shelf.

I received an advance reader copy (from Netgalley) in exchange for a fair review. Thanks to St. Martins and the author for a chance to review this.

I really, really, wanted to like this. as it really seemed like something I'd enjoy but I found myself being bored about halfway through. I finished but there was too much focus on the love triangle and not enough on the mystery/spooky.

This ended up being a very uneventful read for me. The premise felt really cool: a girl finds herself in a creepy orphanage, realises it’s actually a kind of purgatory for murdered kids, and tries to find out who killed her so that she can move on. The beginning was intriguing, especially since, like other ghosts in the orphanage, Echo first has to piece together memories of her death—reliving the trauma at once would be too shocking—, and investigating why you’re in an orphanage when last you knew your parents were definitely alive, well, that’s tricky.

The problem lied mainly in how all this was executed. Not particularly thrilling, for starters. Echo has a couple of culprits in mind, so she and the other kids go to ‘haunt’ them and see if they’re going to wield under pressure, or are actually innocent, but… it wasn’t anything scary or memorable, more like pranks, not like the really creepy kind of haunting you could get when adding children/teenagers to the mix (in general, I find kid ghosts scarier than adult ones). The mystery itself—finding the murdered—wasn’t exciting either, nor were the murderer’s reactions. Perhaps this was partly due to Echo’s power as a ghost: entering living people’s bodies in order to perceive their thoughts. The investigation part, in turn, was more about vaguely picking a maybe-potential culprit, scaring them, popping in their mind, then be gone. Then the story. And then Echo’s past as a ‘bad girl’ was revealed, and it turned out it wasn’t so much bad as introduced without much taste.

Definitely cringeworthy was the drama-addled romance. Echo’s living boyfriend, Andy, is all about moping and wanting to kill himself over her death, and… well, call me hard-hearted and callous, but you’re 16 and that kind of relationship is by far NOT the first one you’re going to experience in life, so pegging everything on it always feels contrived to me. Then there’s cute ghost boy Cole, who’s not about murdering the hypotenuse (thanks goodness), yet was strange, considering Andy is not aware of his presence, and so the triangle is… incomplete? (Its attempts at becoming a square later didn’t help either.) Also contains examples of stupid Twue Wuv/The One/soulmate 4evah/Doormat Extraordinaire. Such as Echo being so happy that her corpse was dressed in her favourite dress at her funeral… Favourite because her boyfriend Andy liked it. I still have no idea if Echo herself liked the pattern or colour or whatever. In any case, these are the kind of tropes I dislike in novels in general, and in YA even more. Why always make it look like couple love is the ultimate end, as if nobody (whether girl or boy) couldn’t have a good life in different ways?

In fact, I was more interested in the orphanage’s headmistress (whose back story plays a part for a chapter or so) and other inmates, all with their own murders to solve. These I would’ve liked to see interact more than just as Echo’s sidekicks. But we don’t get to learn much about them, apart from how they died. Too bad.

Conclusion: Nope.

I loved this book although I found it kind of hard to get into it at first but once I was in I was hooked I loved the plot and the style of writing I look forward to more from temple Matthews x

31450580.jpgBased on the premise, I thought I'd really enjoy Bad Girl Gone. Well--I knew I'd have a n issue with the "she's blatantly dead why can't she tell" part of it, but the rest of it I fully expected to enjoy.

Sixteen year-old Echo Stone awakens in a cold sweat in a dark room, having no idea where she is or how she got there. But she soon finds out she’s in Middle House, an orphanage filled with mysteriously troubled kids.

There’s just one problem: she’s not an orphan. Her parents are very much alive.

She explains this to everyone, but no one will listen. After befriending a sympathetic (and handsome) boy, Echo is able to escape Middle House and rush home, only to discover it sealed off by crime scene tape and covered in the evidence of a terrible and violent crime. As Echo grapples with this world-shattering information, she spots her parents driving by and rushes to flag them down. Standing in the middle of street, waving her arms to get their attention, her parents’ car drives right through her.

She was right. Her parents are alive—but she’s not.

She’s a ghost, just like all the other denizens of Middle House. Desperate to somehow get her life back and reconnect with her still-alive boyfriend, Echo embarks on a quest to solve her own murder. As the list of suspects grows, the quest evolves into a journey of self-discovery in which she learns she wasn’t quite the girl she thought she was. In a twist of fate, she’s presented with one last chance to reclaim her life and must make a decision which will either haunt her or bless her forever.­­­­
Echo is obnoxious and self-centered. I'm all for something focusing personal development but I couldn't make it far enough to watch her learn from her mistakes.

True to books I can't stand--a love triangle is featured prominently. Echo loved Andy when she was alive. They even had obnoxiously disgusting nicknames for each other: rabbit and wolfie. Once Echo died, she fell for Cole. Because he's super hot. Then she gets incredibly jealous when Andy is eyeballed by a new--living--girl and rushes to kiss Cole. And I wanted to hurl. Echo is literally every stereotype about teenage girls all rolled into one and it annoyed me to no end.

Everyone lacked a genuine personality and Echo's mind reading power made her troubles too easy to get through.
REVIEW WILL BE LIVE AUGUST 8th, 2017

I recieved a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Eileen 'Echo' Stone was a character I just couldn't find myself getting behind. The idea of the story was interesting to me, but the actual execution left a lot to be desired in my eyes.
Echo seemed to be the stereotypical girl next door turns bad girl, but she doesn't remember all of this. I kind of enjoyed her not knowing what had happened, I liked how she acted a lot more than I did after she started to remember. Oh and don't even get me started on the dead/dead/living love triangle. It didn't do anything for the characters involved except give me a reason to hate the ending. There were a few questions I had at the end such as what happened to Lucy but more importantly what affects who gets what "power"? Some made sense, e.g. being able to freeze things, but powers like Echo's own were clearly just for convenience.
1/5 stars.

The girl wakes up in Middle House, house for orphans, the problem is her parents are alive, and nobody listens to her. One day she is able to go back to her house and is convinced that she won't return back. She find her parents and crime scene in her house. Her parents aren't dead, she is.

I was really intrigued by the premise, it is really interesting and unique. But I didn't like the writing style, I just could not connect to the character or the plot line.

I loved the idea of this one but there were some parts on this story that I didn't like a lot.Also the main character was one more issue and I couldn't be so into the story.

I'm not going to talk about the plot, as it would spoil your read of this book.
Not my usual sort of fare, but I have to say, a good read. I must admit, to begin with I had no idea where the story was going, but it kept me interested and reading. Fascinating idea, and look forward to reading the next book (I hope after that ending, there is one!)

Having received a pre-view copy of this book for review, it was like a box of candy. It didn’t last more than a day or two. I ate it up. Echo finds herself in an orphanage. How she came to be in this orphanage is Echo’s to solve, and ...can she can find a way out? The reader goes on this mysterious, nightmare passage until both author and reader realizes there is only one way out. Great read. Don’t miss it! It’s worth planning ahead for.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this. The whole book could have been written over the course of about 30 pages, and while it tried to become a mystery, it didn't introduce everyone soon enough, and by the time we figured out who the villain was, it had been told to us.

~1/5~ (Review to be posted on Goodreads mid to late July 2017)

The single star is only there because I saw a dash of potential in this book, and Goodreads doesn’t allow 0/5 stars. However, the thing is, a ton of stuff was extremely messed up in Bad Girl Gone, and it’s all overwhelmingly cringeworthy.

Originally, I wanted to read this ARC pretty badly, based on the description and synopsis, but once I started reading, everything just plummeted.

Let’s get started then.

Romance played too large of a role in Bad Girl Gone, and even then, it was like a penguin trying to fly. You’d expect them to, since they’re birds and all, but it’s a more or less a fail no matter how hard they slide off slopes. Translation: some level of romance was inevitable, but

The love triangle between the main character and her interests was the worst thing ever, honestly. I loathed it, because everything between Echo and Cole was just so forced and unnatural, and Echo’s relationship with Andy was disgusting to me. For goodness sake, when Echo was prepping Dani for the date, she practically forced her to wear what he’d like on her, which she knew because she wore everything for him. I quote, from Echo’s thoughts about Dani’s appearance, “She was doing everything wrong!” What. The. Heck. Is. Wrong. With. Echo.

I can’t even say who would’ve been better with who because all the characters lacked depth. They just had basic roles that were marginally satisfied.

Even as Echo’s relationship with Cole was progressing(?), she was all “Andy, my boyfriend *heart eyes*, and she just kept leading him on and on, so no, I didn’t feel anything when Echo and her guy promise to love each other forever, and yes, I’m incredibly disgusted given the context of said promises. Gag (you’ll understand if you’ve read the book, otherwise, don’t bother).

Sigh. The whole gist of it, Bad Girl Gone was incredibly disappointing and a terrible book with shallow characters, and this novel is a tragic piece of work that could’ve been so much better (don’t mean to be harsh, it’s just a bummer, that’s all).

Nevertheless, thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

One of my favorite tear-jerking anime is Angel Beats! It's about kids who go to a place after death like a school where they have to accept their deaths and then be reborn (you know, Hinduism). Anyway, they don't remember much about their previous life. at first. But eventually, they do. And this book was a carbon copy of Angel Beats!

Now, of course, there are some differences. I won't list all the similarities because they're countless but executed in a very bad way. Echo, the main character, wasn't exactly a good girl like Otonashi in Angel Beats who is a decent person and a boy. I prayed it won't end in a similar way but of course, it did.

Echo wakes up in a dark room in what is called the Middle house. She learns later that she is there because she was murdered. All the children of the house are there for the same reason. Everyone has a superpower. They want to revenge their deaths so they can reborn. You know Karma. They're ghosts who do abnormal stuff to a point of killing their murders to rest and move on.

As you can see, this is Angel Beats mixed with Miss P's house for Peculiar children and Ghostbusters. Wow mixing three different cultures. It was bad.

Echo (I hate her name, stupid reason to give her this nickname) is so annoying and self-centered. The point of this book is that she doesn't stay the same person by the end well she didn't but I didn't like her nonetheless. I actually wanted to use some quotations from this book to show you why I didn't like the book. But since it's an arc and it might be edited, I might add them when the final copy is released but still, that doesn't explain the use of over 320 exclamation marks in a 250 pages book.

So before her death, she used to love this person called Andy (he called her rabbit and she called him wolfie and oh my God the cringe). After her death, she starts falling for a guy named Cole. He's super hot. It was too much of insta-love for me. Because you see, she starts thinking a lot about him only a day or two after her death. And she's loved Andy, she doesn't want him to be with anyone else. She gets super jealous from this girl who has a crush on her boyfriend and after 2 minutes, she starts kissing Cole. Seriously? So yeah this love-triangle was total non-sense.

I do not approve what the kids are doing. I liked that in Angel Beats they tried to deal with their situation and accept it but here? It was a mess. The characters lacked a real personality. When she first arrived, you get the idea that there were so many people there but then she makes friends and we know nothing about the rest. Also, Echo's power helped the plot too much. Where's the mystery here if she can just enter any person's thoughts?!

I didn't like this book, at least, I finished in less than 2.5 hours so it wasn't a real waste of time. I really wanted to give it a chance but no, sorry.

An unoriginal ghost story where the girl doesn't realize she's a ghost at first, et cetera. If you're going to do this over again, please at least make it fresh and snappy.

I loved the whole idea of this and do think that the mystery was unraveled well but, the romance aspect was unnecessary and put a bit of a downer on my enjoyment. If that was taken out this could have been such a good book.

Thanks, NetGalley and St Martins Pres for the opportunity to read this delightful book in exchange of an unbiased honest review.
Even though this is most a YA book, it captivated me the same way that Twilight and Fallen did. It’s a light easy read for older adults.
Echo wakes up i9n Middle house, that she soon discovers is an orphanage for (I would say teenagers) who have been murdered (each seems to have some sort of paranormal power). They are trapped there till that have ‘closure’ on how they died, by seeking out and taking revenge on those that caused their early demise.
Echo meets a dashing spirit in the ‘orphanage’ who she starts to have develop deep affection for, she is torn as she still has unfinished business with the boy she was with when she was still breathing.
Now I don’t want to give too much away but wouldn’t it be fantastic if such a place excited and killers were brought to justice by their victims.

One where I liked the concept far more than the execution. THe everyday "life" of teen ghosts is intriguing, especially teens who have been murdered. Having to come to terms with all they have lost while seeking justice - there's a lot of potential there. But that potential is never fully realized. Instead of complex characters looking for answers in emotionally complex scenarios we have a series of revenge fantasies carried out by flat characters complicated by bizarre happenings. The various ghost powers don't always make sense. Some are tied to their manner of death, others are random.