Book Project

On the Day I Died

by  Candace Fleming

   Mark is driving home after a party, passed his curfew, when he comes to a bridge. His cell phone is ringing (probably his mom calling to chew him out for being late), but he ignores it to help a girl, who randomly appears in front of him dripping wet standing on the bridge. He offers to drive her home and she accepts. She has him drop her off at the beginning of a dirt driveway. As he is pulling away, he sees she left her brand new saddles in the car. He ignores his still ringing phone to take the shoes to her house. At the house he learns from her mother that the girl died fifty years prior from a drowning accident. Several other young men have found her haunting the bridge, taken her home, and found her shoes left behind in their cars. Mark doesn't believe the mother, so she goes to take him to the cemetery for teens she was buried in. He finds a pile of shoes, some so old they are faded strips of leather. Ghosts from the surrounding graves approach him, wanting to tell their stories. Each story borders on the weird. Some teens are heroes, others not. Some stories creepy others not, but he sits down to listen to every last one.

Setting:

  This story takes place in Chicago, but as every ghost tells their story you are drawn back further and further to the earlier years of Chicago.

Character development:

   There isn’t much character development in the story it mostly just consists of Mike listening to every story from the kids in the graveyard.

Conflict

 There isn’t much of a conflict in this book other than Mike trying to figure out if he is really dead, but it isn't really

Critique:

 In my opinion, I thought the book was a really good one. Each story had a completely different unique plot and outcome . There were so many plot twists you’d come upon that would just make you want to read more. What I most liked was the suspense and tension created by the author the way each story was told. One thing I didn’t really like was the vocabulary used to fit the specific era each story was told in. I felt like the dialogue was unnatural and forced upon. Like when a teacher tells you to write a paragraph using a word bank, you focus more on making it fit rather than making the story flow naturally.