Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately it’s not for me. Did not finish @ 13%.

A good YA mystery, however, it fell a bit flat for me. I wasn't a fan of the characters and the pacing was a bit slow for me. I will definitely try this author again, though!

Unfortunately this wasn't the book for me. The writing style and pacing just didn't do it for me. I'd maybe try this author again, but unfortunately I just couldn't get into this.

Oh my gosh I adored this book. I love the story and the writing and the way Wakefield pulls you in. The protagonist is also a joy to read about. I love the mystery behind Hannah. It felt super thrilling to me and I really wanted to know what happened. Grace is also an enjoyable character to read and I loved I felt so strongly for her and her dad and brother. Her friends are also great.

Overall a great thrilling mystery novel and recommend it highly!

I really enjoyed this novel. This author writing is so good. She kept me throughout the book on the edge of my seat. I loved the plot and the characters; those were the best things in this story. I would totally recommend!

This was a really great young adult mystery, I loved Grace's character, characters that are a bit different are some of my favourite to follow.

I really liked the mystery and paranormal aspects of this novel. I do wish that more thrilling moments were included, rather than witnessing the main character Grace having disagreements with other characters. I have a full review on my Goodreads profile!

Creepy books with ghosts are always my cup of tea, but Ballad for a Mad Girl fell flat. I didn't feel that the protagonist lived up to her expectation (she's meant to be funny?!), and there was a lot of confusion in the prose style. Also, her friends were absolutely terrible, which meant that I practically disliked everyone in the book. However, the idea for the story was interesting, and with a better main character, perhaps would have succeeded.

A good train read. Quick and easy. Story was engaging but a bit middle-of-the-road. It also ended a bit too abruptly.

This book was given to me by NetGalley for an honest review.

I was really excited about this book, and it didn't disappointed. It's creepy and thrilling, but at the same time so real...
Grace is trying to cope with her mother's death and adjust to the new reality of her house. Her relationship with her father is no ideal, which upsets me a little (I believe most people must strive to have good relationships with their daughters/sons). In the meantime, she fixates her attention to trying to solve a murder that happened 20 years ago.

The main character, although sometimes a little bland, is pretty interesting. Her grip on reality fades away by each page, and we're experiencing everything through here without knowing what's real and not.

If you're looking for an creepy and psychological thriller, this is the one for you.

On the surface Grace Foley is a risk-taker, a prankster, a troublemaker but in reality she’s struggling. Her dad moved them from the farm she grew up on to a ‘cardboard house’ after the death of her mum, while her friends seem to be moving on without her.

She accepts a challenge to walk across a pipe, something she’s done several times before but something strange happens. Slowly her grip on reality seems to be fading, she’s seeing things, experiencing things she could never have known about and it’s all linked to the mysterious disappearance of Hannah Holt twenty-three years ago.

I can’t tell you how much I loved this book, I’ve been looking for a good spooky story for ages. It’s part mystery, part ghost story, set against the back drop of high school.

At first I was a little confused, I thought it was set in the US, as most YA books seem to be nowadays, but they used words like bloody, pub and they wore school uniforms. It turns out it was set in Australia which made a welcome change.

Then we have Grace. The whole book is written in the first person, from Grace’s perspective, which usual I’m not a fan of, they are usually slightly whiny, but I thought she was a fantastic character. Okay she’s moody, grumpy and a little self centred but to me she felt like a real teenager and I really liked her.

The book was creepy, atmospheric and very realistic, it even made me feel a little emotional at times. There’s also some wonderful description, one of my favourite is:

‘He’s got a long line running through the middle of his forehead, as if somebody ironed a perfect crease there.’

And even a harden fan of crime fiction like myself, didn’t see any of the twists in the story coming!

I will definitely be reading more from this author in the future.

Overall rating: 2.5 stars

Soo... I got creeped out. *cue creepy murder music*

(ALSO I'M SO PROUD OF MYSELF I'M FINALLY REVIEWING BOOKS I SHOULD HAVE REVIEWED WEEKS AGO.)

I didn't know anything about the book before I started reading it. I liked the cover, so I requested for it. (Oh my goodness I sound so shallow.) When I started reading it I was kind of confused.

I don't understand what Grace is doing, and she has TERRIBLE friends. They don't believe in her when she confides in them, and even abandon her to deal with her own problems.

+ I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON??!! Is Grace insane, or is there a ghost trying to drive her crazy? I was so creeped out! It was very confusing, like in We Were Liars, I had no idea if Cadence went mad, or if she was dead. I HATE THAT FEELING. IT MAKES NO SENSE. AT ALL.

And Diesel is the worst pet ever. Instead of making Grace feel better (like a normal dog), he attacks her and spooks her out more when she's feeling scared.

Also, umm, the book keeps describing Grace as a funny prankster but SHE ISN'T FUNNY AT ALL? She made me laugh approximately 0 times. Her dad cares about her but she disobeys him all the time and arrrgh I just hate it so much.

The only thing I liked about this book was the mystery. I SO DESPERATELY NEEDED TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT HANNAH HOLT'S DEATH. The book was very gripping and I couldn't stop reading because OH, THE SUSPENSE.

LOVED IT.
Was sent my copy to my Kindle off of Netgalley.

I love all things Paranormal, Ghosts, spiritual, murders, possible Suicides, aswell as the loss of a Parent (my mum died 5years ago)

Everybody should give this a read. I Did start to read it back around the 16th November 2017 but I gave up, due to reading 3 other books, but I restarted it yesterday, and couldn't put it down.

I really did enjoy it.
thanks NetGalley.

Well written Vicki

This did not catch my interest. I became partly interested around 75% but not before.
I could not stand any if the characters. There were all so unlikeable. Don’t even get me started on the main character… But her family or friends weren’t any better.

The plot was soooo messy and the way it was written was incredibly frustrating. Often, we would have a sort of cliffhanger at the end of the chapter but there was no following at the beginning of the next chapter, it would be hours or even days before and we wouldn’t find out what happened after all.

I also often had to re-read parts of a pages because I couldn’t understand what Grace was doing, what she wanted.
The ending was also pretty underwhelming...

Grace Foley is an adventurer, creating mischief and mayhem in the rural town of Swanston while continuing to endure the loss of her mother, the causality of a pedestrian accident. Swanston is acquainted with despair when Hannah Holt disappeared over twenty years ago, a presumed casualty of local teen William Dean who was then ostracised from the Swanston community, committing suicide and plunging from the quarry. Now Swanston adolescents are descending on the abandoned quarry including seventeen year old Grace. A night of frivolity is interrupted as Grace begins to hallucinate.

At home Grace is barely surviving, her father and brother Cody continue to mourn while Grace is increasingly isolated. Best friend Kenzie has become estranged and tiring of Grace and her antics, preferring the company of boyfriend Mitchell. While her friends have matured, frustratingly Grace believes they have abandoned her, except for her delightfully freeloading friend Gummer. Her terror is palpable as Grace begins to experience an apparition, believing Hannah Holt has materialised seeing Hannah's body has never been found. Authorities believe William Dean's unrequited love for Hannah lead to the young woman's demise, fascinating and incredibly disturbing.

Grace is an unreliable narrator compensating for her anguish with exhilaration. As children, Grace created bilateral friendships with other remnant children, those who were ostracised. On the verge of becoming adults, Grace displays an incredible amount of resentment especially towards best friend Kenzie, her relationship with Mitchell and popular friend Amber. Although Grace often appears conceited and obnoxious, Kenzie had already begun to distance herself from Grace's destructive behaviour. The circumstances of Hannah Holt and William Dean are sobering for Grace as she withstands an incredible character transformation.

Ballad For A Mad Girl may become a point of contention for readers, is Grace psychologically unwell or spiritual, a contemporary novel or paranormal. Determined by the disposition of the reader. Vikki Wakefield is a formidable author, the ambiguous narrative is intriguing and captivating. Absolutely phenomenal.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

When I read the synopsis for this book I was drawn in straight away and wanted to see what the book had in store as it sounded really interesting, unfortunately I was left disappointed.

'Ballad For A Mad Girl' is about a girl called Grace who throughout her life has always been the joker in her group of friends, throwing pranks, taking risks and just being the friendship clown in general. One night when challenging a boy from the 'enemy school' if you like, something goes wrong with Grace and from then on nothing is right with her. She starts hearing voices and having hallucinations all whilst trying to act herself but something sinister is happening inside of her. 

It took me a very long while to actually get into this book and honestly even when I did sit to focus on it I think I was just reading it to give me something to do. I found it really hard to like the characters and there wasn't much emotion in the writing. A lot of the story was confusing and for me it was never clear if Grace was genuinely possessed or if she's suffering from mental health problems. The relationships between characters weren't great either. I felt there wasn't a lot of character development throughout the book and with Grace's friends, all of them were unsupportive and seemed to shut her off rather than offer to help her or listen to how she was feeling. The character that annoyed me most regarding this was Kenzie. As Grace's bestfriend she should've been there to help Grace in any way she could rather than leave her to suffer and struggle alone.

In regards to the relationship between Grace, her father and her brother Cody, Grace was sort of excluded from everything they did. I get that they were all grieving the loss of their mother/wife but at a time like that then you need all the family support you can get and I didn't like that a lot of the time it felt like both her dad and brother were ignoring me. There was also a part which included Grace's grandmother (her mother's mum) and with the whole story I'm not too sure what purpose it had to be included at all. It was brought up maybe once after that and even then there was no explanation that cleared it up or helped it make sense.

I'm honestly gutted that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped as I had such high hopes for it. I must admit that at the end it did pick up after Grace's dad doesn't come home and her and Cody go looking for him but then with the way it ended I was left disappointed again because you're left wondering what happens which annoys me with books if there's not going to be a sequel which is the situation with this book. Thank you to Netgalley for sending me a copy of the book for an honest review.

It took me a long time to get into this book. Originally, the blurb intrigued me, but once I started reading it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I didn't find the main character, Grace, very likeable at all. I kind of wanted to punch her. I get that she has a lot going on, and being a teenager just makes everything worse, but I still didn't like her. The main plot of the book wasn't bad and I did enjoy the supernatural theme, but there were definitely pieces that just didn't seem to fit. I wasn't sure of the genre either. I was expecting a supernatural thriller but found it was more a YA mystery with a supernatural twist. Not that it was a bad thing, just not what was expected. I wish there would have been more excitement throughout the entire book, rather than simply towards the end. It would have made it more enjoyable. I did love that twist though! The writing style did keep me going and I definitely kept me wanting to know how it would all play out. All in all, the book wasn't bad but it wasn't great. For me anyway. I think I will keep an eye out for this author. I see a lot of promise. here.

Grace Foley is a teenager hoarding a lot of rage and grief. She's never got over the death of her mother or her father subsequently leasing out their farm and moving Grace and her brother to town. She's known for the pranks she plays, particularly on the kids at the catholic school next door to her government high school. She also thinks she's fearless and to prove it has the record for walking along the 40m pipe crossing the gully in the old quarry just outside of town and with a drop of 15 m to the bottom it's certainly not for the faint-hearted. But this time she finds herself thinking about Hannah Holt, the girl who went missing 23 years ago and William Dean, Hannah's boyfriend who jumped to his death from the pipe. Grace manages the test run across the pipe but on the way back, attempting to defend her record something strange happens, the world turns dark and scary and and she freezes half way across the pipe, unable to move any further.

So starts Grace's quest to find out what happened to Hannah and William. She starts to feel their presence, imagining strange, almost supernatural events or is she just going mad? As her body and mind spiral into decay, her family and friends worry about her and her school work suffers and even she does not understand her relentless urge to find Hannah.

This is such a good book on so many levels. The writing is gritty and honest and the feel of life for teenagers in a small community is perfectly depicted. Grace's group of misfit friends are all interesting characters, learning to step out of their shadows in their last year at school in a small rural town to become independent adults. Although they care about Grace, they are already growing apart as they plan for the future and discover life outside of school. In contrast, Grace feels held back and out of touch as she struggles with the ghosts and demons surrounding her mother's death and the need to resolve Hannah's disappearance. I would have liked to know a little bit more about Grace as the fun-loving, prankster she's described as before the pipe incident changed her into an obsessed, somewhat selfish creature as it was difficult to see this side of her and connect with her as her world starts to fall apart. The ending was a surprise and perhaps would have felt less rushed with a few more hints along the way, but was nonetheless very satisfying. Highly recommended for all ya and adult readers who enjoy good writing and an intriguing plot.

DNF @ 25%

I just can't do it to myself. I stayed for the mystery for as long as I could but cut out early because of the judgmental main character. It just reminded me too much of myself when I was a teenager (yes, teenage me was an asshole). The mystery just wasn't interesting enough to make me stay. I did want to like this book. I don't find many books written by Aussie authors that I enjoy. Unfortunately, again, this did nothing for me.

You know a book is pretty good when you pull an all nighter to finish it!

Let's get the cons out of the way first:
-I wish we could have seen (spoiler) more of Grace before "the incident" happens. We're told by the book blurb and various characters that Grace is supposed to be "mad", a daredevil, a maverick, and yet we don't see much of that except for her eagerness to go to the pipe challenge in the first chapter. Since we mostly follow her after the incident, when she's OOC, we haven't really established how Grace is supposed to be, so her being OOC doesn't have the impact it could have. I think that Vikki Wakefield should have used the "show, don't tell" golden rule of writing in this case.

-I also didn't get the part when (spoiler) Grace says that William Dean's ghost "used" her. I wil talk more about this later, but it's not completely clear whether there was even a ghost or not, but if we assume there was, I still don't know what he wanted from Grace and why he expected her to "listen". Maybe that was just me.

-Some of the characters were underdeveloped, like Amber or Mitchell, or that Noah kid that seemed like a hot shot at the beginning, but never even got a speaking line. (Coincidentally, Amber and Noah ended up together)

-In general, the book felt a bit short. I think it could have used some more pages to flesh it out better.

Now the pros!
-I loved that there was some abiguity in the book. By the end of the book, I wasn't 100% certain whether anything paranormal happened or not, since most, if not all, of the events of the book may have had a practical explanation (something that's pointed out by Grace's therapist). I love how the ambiguity was handled.

-I also liked the topic of friendships slowly coming undone and people's priorities changing. That's a very interesting, and dare I say, relatable subject.

-The writing was fantastic. To be honest, the plot isn't anything special, but the writing makes it work and makes the idea seem very fresh. I particularly loved the straight-up horror scenes (admittedly, there's only two of these, but still) Vikki Wakefield did a great job with her dialogue and descriptions, she made the book a proper page-turner and it definitely achieved that effect on me.

So, all in all, I enjoyed the book! I am looking forward to seeing what the author does next.