At the time I requested this book I was very interested in it. Obviously, it has been a few years since I requested this and I am no longer interested in it now. It doesn't match my current reading tastes and I apologize that I didn't read it and thank you for the kindness you showed offering it to me.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library collection and will recommend it to students.

I loved The Cresswell Plot, which lead me to pick up this one. I’m not sure if it was my mood or the story but the two never came together.

I really thought this book was going to be interesting but nope. It was really flat and dark and just didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t enjoy a single character and I really wanted to. Unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I know there were a lot of people who enjoyed it but it just wasn’t the right fit for me.

I really enjoyed the plot of this book! I also really enjoyed the twists and turns it had to offer it's readers. The only concern I had with this story was that I was a bit confused at times with what was going on. Besides the brief amount of confusion, I am glad I read this story and do recommend it to others!

This book wasn’t exactly what I was expecting going into it and unfortunately the writing style wasn’t for me. I didn’t relate to the characters very well causing me to lose interest somewhat quickly.

For such a short book it was rough getting through it. I was so confused for most of it and the plot was so messy. I couldn't figure out what this book was even trying to be. It literally took until the last 50 pages for the story to even make some kind of sense and for some semblance of a plot or direction to show itself. Not much was explain. We just get bits and pieces of multiple stories and are left to wonder what was this? I felt myself just going through the motions and skimming most of the middle section. Then all of a sudden the plot is moving too quickly and I'm trying to catch up. I think it would have been a much better book for me it there was some kind of order to things and if they cut out the first half of the book and started in a different direction...but even then the characters were flat. I didn't care about any of them except maybe mild curiosity for a dead boy. Overall, not good.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this intriguing concept was smitten by the poor execution of it. I had to DNF it after spending months dreading picking it back up. I felt no connection to the characters, nor had any real interest in deciphering who was who as no one was properly introduced. As they say, life is too short to read mediocre books.

I wasn’t sure about The Life and Death Parade before I even started it. It definitely grew on me after a few pages.

Eliza Wass writes some very, very weird things but makes it work. I remember thinking the same thing when I read The Cresswell Plot . . . creepy, weird, but interesting.

I really enjoyed this one. I knew something was going on, because things weren’t adding up, so I enjoyed the big reveal and plot twist.

Not really a spooky read, but could pass off as one. Very magic centric more than anything, but not overly so.

My one complaint was it was hard to decipher if the cast was modern or historic. It read as historical, in a way, but felt very modern.

"The Life and Death Parade" is mysterious and spooky in all the right ways, with twists and turns that kept the book from being dull and predictable. Although the idea that you can't outrun your fate is not new in the literary world, Eliza Wass was able to weave a tale that played on everything we love about those classic Gothic tomes--old ancestral homes, a brooding boy, supernatural elements, a mysterious past--and modernizes them without obviously trying to rewrite a classic story. 4/5 stars.

'The Life and Death Parade' is a fantastic novel that blends fantasy, magic, and the supernatural with hard life topics like death, grief, and love. I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in to this book, but it seemed like something I would enjoy. I'm so glad that I gave it a chance because I ended up liking it much more than I thought I would. I loved the setting and backdrop of the story - an old English castle inhabited by a very wealthy family that has fallen apart due to the death of one of their own. It created a haunted and somewhat creepy feel and I just think it was a great place for the story to take place. The characters were all well rounded and made the story come to life for me. I loved getting to know Kitty as the story unfolded, as well as the members of the Bramley family, and Roan. They each had unique personalities and traits that made them realistic and easy to identify with. Strangely enough, Nikki - the "ghost" that is haunting everyone throughout the novel, was also a major character and I liked getting to know him too. I liked watching them each change in different ways during the book, especially concerning one another and Nikki.

As I mentioned, the plot mixes both the supernatural with realistic issues. I thought it was an interesting blend of topics and created a wonderful story magical in so many ways - not just the ones expected. It's a story of grief, forgiveness, love, friendship, loss, family, and so many other rough and relevant topics that it'll speak to readers of all ages. I highly recommend this book for fans of fantasy, paranormal/supernatural, contemporary, romance, and even mysteries.

3.5 Stars

When I first started reading this book, I was struck by the style-it's like The Great Gatsby meets Rebecca and has dinner with The Diviners. There's something whimsical, yet dark and Gothic about the word choice and overall atmosphere of the book-because that's what was created here, an extensive and powerful atmosphere of mystery, magic, and yearning. 

Here's the thing, while I have an English degree and love the classics, I've never been one for magical realism. Something about it feels false but to tell this story, it was the perfect choice. The Life and Death Parade is unsettling. It will make you question what is real and what is cleverly promoted through lies, smoke, and mirrors. There are many times when it seems you're on the verge of answers but when they come, they're to a different question or not all what you expected. And some things are started and left unfinished. Whether it was an intentional decision or not, it's as much of a mystery as the truth itself. 

There's a kind of lazy, upper-class entitlement that threads through the book. Like Holly Golightly in male form. The characters are...eclectic and not exactly likeable. They did have unique, if odd, personalities. I wish I would have liked them enough to become invested in their future, but really, I just cared about the story itself. 

The plot was intriguing. It sucks you in and holds you prisoner. You need to know what happened and there are so many possibilities. I loved the blend of magical, traveling performers, and praying to specific saints for favors. The Life and Death Parade is a culture in itself and so cool. There's a New Orleans vibe set in the English countryside. The crafting of altars, psychic readings, and sensationalization drags the reader right into that world, and begs them to question whether they believe and how much it matters.

At its heart, this is a story of grief and trying to process how it happened after the fact. The characters are lost in the past and don't know how to move forward because of their tragic loss. They all mourn in different and arguably unhealthy ways because they were waiting for closure that would not come on its own. 

I liked that there wasn't really an in-your-face consuming romance, but one that hummed beneath the story and yet was the entire foundation for the events that occured. 

All in all, this was a strange, enjoyable read.

I haven’t (yet) read THE CRESSWELL PLOT, but I remember when it came out and I first heard the name Eliza Wass. I didn’t know the work of her late husband, the musician Alan Wass, but I knew that he had passed because she made reference to it in her author biography. So when I saw the concept of this book, THE LIFE AND DEATH PARADE, I was eager to read it and find out how she described the loss of a loved one and the grieving process. What I didn’t realize, however, until I just looked it up, is that her husband only passed away 3 years ago. I can only imagine the strength it took to, first of all, even finish THE CRESSWELL PLOT in the midst of his death and, second, write such an intimate look at grief as she has done in this book. I’ve said this before: it seems to me that many authors have “the book of their heart,” the one that is for whatever reason more special than all the others. It feels to me like this is that book for Ms. Wass.

Although this is a short novel - certainly the shortest I’ve read in a while - it’s incredible to me how Ms. Wass is able to pack so much emotion in here. I used the same amount of page flags for this 246-page book as I normally use for books with 400 pages! As someone who has...let’s say, “issues”...with economy of words, I greatly admire someone who can so beautifully tell a whole, satisfying story with such spare prose. It’s not like, oh, Ernest Hemingway and his ridiculously short sentences; rather, Ms. Wass has an ability to make darn near *every single word* count. Long story short, I have a tendency to ramble, especially in writing (if you’ve read my reviews, you know this, ha!), so I admire packing the same intensity of a 400-page book in a mere 246 pages.

The reason I wanted to read this book is that I often seek out books that explore loss and grief, because I lost my sister to domestic violence ten and a half years ago and I still struggle with it, every single day. I tend to gravitate toward novels that explore the variety of ways we humans grieve, how we each handle devastating loss in our own way. I will admit - and this is not something I’ve said “out loud” before - that I often feel I must be doing the grieving process incorrectly, because I remain so affected by my sister’s loss more than ten years later. Maybe I am searching for the “right” way to do it, which is why I seek out books like this one? For whatever reason, I’m glad I did read this one, because it really is a beautiful examination of loss, grief, and faith. Kitty’s struggle with the death of her boyfriend, Nikki, at far too young an age is presented with respect. Her desire to find some way to reach Nikki, to talk to him, her intense need to just have him back -- these are all things I have felt in the past ten-plus years. If I heard of something like the Life and Death Parade? I would be all over it just as eagerly as was Kitty, you better believe that.

There were so many sentences, paragraphs, and sections of this book that I just felt so connected to. I teared up a fair amount, because I’d read something that sounded like it could have come from my own mouth, and because I really felt Kitty’s pain (not to mention that of his brother, Macklin, and his little sister, Holly). At one point, Nikki’s dad, Kitty’s guardian, tells her she seems to be “drifting.” She tells the reader:

>>>I didn’t say anything--what could I say? Of course I was drifting. What else could I do? Only a cold person could say, The boy I loved is dead, so let’s make lemonade out of corpses! To do anything else but drift would be to corroborate with the world, to agree to all this madness. To say it was okay that people died. To say something good could come out of it. (p. 135-136)<<<

And, when he tells her she needs to decide “what it is that you want,” she tells us:

>>>I thought my answer so intensely I almost believed he would read my mind: But what if I can’t have what I want? Because what I wanted was impossible. What I wanted was the world to right itself and start over. I could be generous; I could give the world another chance, if it would just give me Nikki back. (p. 136)<<<

I include those two passages as just two examples of many that, as I said, could have come straight from my own mouth, head, heart. I truly hope that writing this book helped Ms. Wass to work through the fact that, I’m sure, she continues to struggle with the loss of her husband. Also, the inclusion of Alan Wass’ lyrics before each of the four parts of the book made it feel even more special for the reader, like Ms. Wass was sharing a piece of him with each of us. They are beautiful lyrics in their own right, honestly, but knowing that they are the words of the man she loved most in the world and lost too soon, well ... I want to thank her for sharing that with us.

Thanks so much to Rockstar for letting me take part in this tour, and to Disney-Hyperion for the beautiful copy of the book. Thanks especially to Ms. Wass for such a heartfelt story that connected, and resonated, with me deeply. If you are drawn to books that explore the human condition, the loss and grief we all must go through at some point in our lives, I encourage you to pick up THE LIFE AND DEATH PARADE. These are words that will stay with me for a long time.

RATING: 5 bright, beautiful stars

**Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of this blog tour. This review is voluntary on my part, and reflects my honest rating of and thoughts on the book.

It's never a good thing when you feel like you're having to force yourself to finish a book, and sadly that's how I felt the entire time I was reading The Life and Death Parade. I feel like this book had so much potential to be a fantastic YA horror novel, but it just fell flat for me. The overall concept was really interesting and unique, but poorly execute. It took me over a month to read the novel in its entirety because I kept getting bored and putting it down. The characters read as very one dimensional, and I could not connect to them in any way. Kitty and Nikki's relationship didn't read as very romantic, and it just annoyed me. I will say that a few of the twists at the end did redeem this book ever so slightly, but not enough to make me like it. Overall, I give The Life and Death Parade two out of five stars for leaving me confused and disappointed.

In my opinion, this book was a bit of a letdown. The first half of the book seemed like a bit of a hot mess. The characters felt like miserable cardboard cutouts, and I didn't really care about what happened to them, because all this dramatic stuff goes down right off the bat, and I felt no connection to them. I feel like, in order to feel something for the characters in a book, you should know them and be connected with them first. Throughout the first part of the book I just felt vaguely annoyed with everyone, because nothing had really been explained or described character-wise. Another thing I noticed was that the characters often said something, then two pages later, completely changed their minds and said the exact opposite thing. It was like none of them could keep their story straight and everyone was either lying or just confused about how they felt.

The story itself feels kind of like it's being summarized by someone who read an actual book--sort of like a rambling sparknotes version. There's a LOT of descriptive language about the scenery and the actions of the characters, but no really solid storyline that tells the reader where we've been and where we're headed. Every time we come to some new information, it's like one step forward, two steps back. Instead of becoming clearer, the story just gets weirder and more confusing. At one point when I checked to see how far I was, expecting to be about 10% through, I discovered that I was 30% done with the book, but nothing really had happened yet.

The back and forth between the present and the flashback scenes is not very well executed. The flashbacks seemed to be out of order and don't actually explain anything, they just make Nikki (which, tbh, totally seems like the female version of this name to me) look crazy and psychotic, which is sort of an established fact, since they keep referencing how he went nuts after the psychic foretelling his death. Also, you know, he's now dead via mysterious circumstances surrounding a creepy psychic visit.

That being said, things did definitely pick up for the better during the second half of the book. There were some big twists that I totally was not expecting, and I'm glad I didn't DNF the book, like I saw that some people had done on the goodreads page for the book. One of my favorite parts was the actual Life and Death Parade scene. I feel like it was vivid and beautiful; one part psychic fair, one part foresty Burning Man. Once we got more information from that scene, the story did really start to come together and make more sense and get much more interesting! I enjoyed how the mystery of Nikki's life and death was revealed, and the ending was unexpected, but in a good way!

Overall, I think the first part of this book didn't grab me and pull me in the way I would have wanted, but the second half of the book was interesting and mystical and just a tad bit creepy, but in a good way!

I wasn't a fan of this book. The writing was jarring, leaving me confused on the events taking place. I couldn't connect to any of the characters and it felt like nothing was happening despite the fast pace of the book.

Ever since her mother died, Kitty has felt like a guest with her foster family, the wealthy Bramleys that live in the castle on the hill. Luckily she has her long-term best friend Nikki by her side. But when Nikki, his brother and Kitty go to a party and meet a psychic who tells Nikki he's going to die, the world turns upside down. As Kitty pieces together what is going on, she begins learning about a mysterious organization, the Life and Death Parade. 

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley. The name of the book really drew me in, if you'd ever watched Gilmore Girls, you know why. The plot also had a hint of magic to it, but I couldn't figure out what was real or what wasn't. Those are some of my favorite stories, so I was excited to get the chance to read this book. 

The book takes places in the countryside not far from London, but it oddly vauge in its descriptions. The castle the family lives in seems unbelievable. At first, I felt that it added to the eery tone of the book, but eventually it felt unbelievable. It also didn't help that I didn't know exactly where I was. It felt like it could have been any old small country town with a castle. I would have loved to feel a bit more grounded in this world, especially when nearly all of the book takes place in that one location. 

The characters in this book were very complex and had incredible chemistry. Kitty at first is a bit mopey and unlikable, but I enjoyed seeing her interactions with Nikki, who is almost her exact opposite. The other members of the family are all eccentric and strange in their own way and definitely add to the story. The most mysterious character, Roan, is deep and creepy in a way that was a realy joy to read. 

The plot really took me by surprise in this book. I had a definite expectation of where this story would go and what would happen based on similiar books I'd read, but almost immediately, the book took a sharp left turn and left me spinning. There were many twists along the way and the ending definitely took me by surprise in the best way possible. 

The Life and Death Parade is a fast-paced and fun read. It definitely has some dark elements to it, so I don't recommend it to those who are looking something romantic although it does have some sweet moments. This book would be great for those who enjoy thrillers with some supernatural elements.

Rating: 4.25 stars

I honestly really loved this book. There is something about the way that it tells the story with all of the questions about life and (possibly more importantly, at least pertaining to this tale) death weaving through it that just really... intrigued me.

I'm not sure if part of this is because I lost a loved one recently and it just really hit home for me, but even if it is, I'm glad I got the opportunity to check it out.

I am not usually a big magical realism fan. Like, at all. I tend to find these stories harder to follow and to really get in to. But I adored this! I finished it so fast.

This book honestly just tells a story about love and loss, pain, death, hope, faith, magic, etc etc. I could go on and on. We all know that we can't bring a deceased loved one back but this is all about the what ifs. What if we could bring them back? What if we never really lost them in the first place?

While I enjoyed the plot in this story a ton, I think that the character's did need a little more work. I noticed in other reviews that some readers found them to be very two dimensional and I have to agree. The book also has a kind of slow, confusing start. Like, super confusing. I wasn't sure I was prepared to put myself in the mindset for interpreting what was going on. But it kind of all just flowed into something that made more sense, and that I personally really connected to. I think the ideas behind all of this was just really good.

DNF @ 30%

This story sounded like it had a lot of potential as a YA gothic horror, but unfortunately it just didn't work out for me. This was very not good. The writing and the characters are both very flat and one dimensional. I couldn't connect to any of the cast of characters and everything seemed to move too quickly but very little seemed to actually happen. You know, I wasn't even sure if the main character was really dead or not.

I received this book from #netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I truly enjoyed this book. I gave it a very high 4 start. This book is very deep. I does take unexpected turns that I did not see coming. It is a bit dark. It is really hard to put in a review this story because of the intense story line.

I loved it. I would highly recommend this book. The author did a great job on the building up the story.