The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee Review

Name: The Unquiet

Author: Jeannine Garsee
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release Date: July 17th, 2012
Format: Paperback
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388 pages

Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Rinn Jacobs has secrets: One, she’s bipolar. Two, she killed her grandmother.

After a suicide attempt, and now her parents' separation, Rinn and her mom move from California to the rural Ohio town where her mother grew up. Back on her medications and hoping to stay well, Rinn settles into her new home, undaunted by the fact that the previous owner hanged herself in Rinn's bedroom. At school, her classmates believe the school pool is haunted by Annaliese, a girl who drowned there. But when a reckless séance goes awry, and terrible things start happening to her new friends—yet not to her—Rinn is determined to find out why she can’t be "touched" by Annaliese...or if Annaliese even exists.

With the help of Nate Brenner, the hunky “farmer boy” she’s rapidly falling for, Rinn devises a dangerous plan to uncover the truth. Soon reality and fantasy meld into one, till Rinn finds it nearly impossible to tell the difference. When a malevolent force threatens the lives of everyone she cares about--not to mention her own--she can't help wondering: who should she really be afraid of?

Annaliese? Or herself?

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My Review:

The Unquiet was a hauntingly captivating book that refused to be put down.  I read this book in one sitting, as I was unable to stop turning the pages until I found out whether there was actually a ghost haunting the school, or if Rinn, the bipolar main character, was simply just crazy.

Rinn was an excellent protagonist whom I admired greatly.  Whether she was on or off her medication, she constantly remained a strong character who supported what she believed in; she knew how to stand up for herself and those around her, not tolerating bullying of any sort.  Although at some points she had doubts about whether what she was seeing was real or not, Rinn always strived to discover the truth, no matter what the cost might be.  She was also as honest as she could be, without being so truthful that everyone around might think she was completely off her rocker.  When she met Nate, her cute “farmer boy” neighbor, and quickly began to fall for him, she was open about her past from the beginning.  Nate, true to the thoughtful gentleman that he was portrayed as, did not spurn Rinn for her past, but instead accepted her for all her faults, not making a big deal about her bipolar condition.

Throughout the book, strange and deadly things continually happened to Rinn’s new friends after they conducted an eerie séance in the school pool where the ghost of a dead girl, named Annaliese, supposedly lived.  I was glad to see that Jeannine Garsee created genuine, unique characters out of all Rinn’s friends – Meg, Tasha, Lacy, Cecilia, Dino, and Nate – instead of merely giving them names and faceless personalities.  The fact that each character had their own individual traits to bring to the group, even Lacy’s horribly rude attitude, Tasha’s oppressed lifestyle, and Dino’s overbearing infatuations, made me enjoy the book that much more.

Another aspect of this book that I appreciated was how Garsee was not afraid seriously harm, and even kill, some of the main characters.  In a ghost story where everyone’s lives are threatened, it is not realistic for all the characters to survive and live happily ever after.  While I was not outright scared when reading this book, I could not help but turn the pages very quickly, wondering whether Annaliese’s ghost was real, speculating who the next person to be harmed or to die under mysterious circumstances would be, and questioning what crazy stunt Rinn would pull to discover the truth about the ghost.  This book was a great read and I would definitely recommend it to fans of psychological thriller books, or simply contemporary books with spooky edges!

My Rating: