Massive thank you to Chris McVeigh at Fahrenheit Press for my ARC of Dead Is Better. If you missed it, I had a brilliant exclusive Q&A with the author, Jo Perry, on my blog yesterday which you can read HERE.
About the book (via Goodreads):
Charles Stone has just woken up dead. Well he’s pretty sure he’s dead, what with the bullet holes in his chest and all. He also appears to be totally alone in the after-life except for the equally dead dog who seems to be his new companion.
Unable to interact with the world of the living other than watching and listening, he and the dead dog (whom he names Rose) have nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it.
When Charles and Rose try to unravel the circumstances of Charles’s death, they uncover a criminal who is raking in millions of dollars by cruelly exploiting, and sometimes killing, his victims.
But what difference can a ghost make?
And what does the damn dog have to do with any of this?
My thoughts:
I really enjoyed Dead Is Better. It is yet another unique choice from Fahrenheit Press! I read this book in one sitting, it was that engaging for me.
Short chapters make it super easy to read, and there is a quote about death at the beginning of each one which, personally, I thought was a great addition to the book!
Dead Is Better opens with Charles Stone’s demise, and the reader is instantly made to start asking questions. How? Why? And what the hell is with the dog?!
I have to say, once the story got going, I couldn’t stop reading! I was dying (pardon the pun 😂) to find out what happened to Charles, and why the dog (subsequently named Rose) was with him specifically.
I found some of the supporting characters to be awful human beings; they were greedy, self centred and uncaring! That’s testament to the the author and her ability to evoke these emotions in the reader. I like it when books make me hate characters as it’s doing its job!
I’m not going to lie, my eyes may have welled up (just a little mind!) towards the end of the book. I won’t spoil it though. Maybe it caught me off guard! 😉
Dead Is Better is a wonderful book. It is so well written that you just don’t want to stop reading for fear you’ll miss anything!
It will make you question your own mortality and what your feelings about death are, while at the same time reaffirming that life is not always bad. The quotes used at the beginning of each chapter, all of which refer to death or dying, really add to the experience while you’re reading.
I gave Dead Is Better an easy 5⭐️ on Goodreads. It weird, unique, funny and sad all at the same time. An emotional read, but a bloody great story! I can’t wait to read the follow up, Dead Is Best!
You can purchase a copy of Dead Is Better HERE
Happy Reading 😊📖
