A Review for Dead Rules by R.S Russell

Posted by Donna
Published Date: March 29th, 2012
Finished Date: March 15th, 2012
Publishers: Quercus
Source: ARC, For Review
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352


The Blurb from Goodreads: When Jana Webster dies in a tragic accident, she finds herself transferred to 'Dead School' in the afterlife, where students fall into distinct cliques. Risers (good kids who died innocently), Sliders (bad kids, who have one foot tied to earth) and Virgins (there are fewer than Jana would expect). Jana's boyfriend and love of her life - Michael - is still in the land of the living. Michael is Romeo to Jana's Juliet and as the story goes... even death can't keep them apart. Tired of waiting for him to kill himself over his grief of losing her, Jana decides she needs to do it for him. To kill Michael she'll need the help of a dangerous and sexy Slider - Mars Dreamcoate. But Mars has a goal of his own: he wants to save a life to atone for having taken one in a drunk-driving accident. And to complicate matters, he was trying to save Jana when she died and saw what was really going on when her 'accident' happened. Jana decides to do whatever it takes to get Michael back, and nothing - not even Mars' warm touch or the devastating secret he holds about her death - will stop her.
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The Review: Dead Rules was a book I had wanted to read for a while, so when it arrived through my letter box – which was a nice surprise, I was really excited about reading it but, after reading I have to say I’m really disappointed and here’s why;

The story follows the life of Jana Webster, a young girl that one day finds herself transferred to ‘Dead School’ after she is involved in a tragic accident that of course, leaves her dead. When Jana was alive she had a boyfriend named Michael, and Jana will do anything she can to be reunited with him. So, she enlists the help of Mars Dreamcoate, a Slider that is still connected to the real world and with his help she plans to kill Michael.

Now this book sounds pretty amazing but while I really liked the idea and found it quite fascinating, it just didn’t work for me. I read a lot of young adult books and I love them but this was really was wrote for the age level and I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone over the age of 14+. This was the main reason I found it hard to get into because the wording is very simple and basic and the execution of the story had too many flaws. The story had a lot of potential and there were things that kept me reading mainly being Mars but that’s about it.

Our main character Jana wasn’t very likable. I found her very naïve and she was really obsessed with her boyfriend Michael to the point of it being annoying. I really hated the way she introduced herself as ‘Of Webster and Haynes’ – and never in my life have I cringed so much at a few little words but my god I did, every single time she said it. Even though Jana is suppose to be 16 years old, she was more like an 8 year old and I just really didn’t like her. And then of course, we have Michael…who as the story progresses he appears to be a really nice character but nope, he’s a horrible boy that didn’t really care for Jana…but most shockingly wait until the end….it was quite a bitter sweet ending for him and was probably one of the most interesting twists to the story.

Now Mars is a different story, he was my main reason for reading and I found him the most interesting. He was actually present when Jana died, so he knows what really happened and because of this he has a connection with her. I loved how he supported her even though she was in love with Michael but what I loved about Mars was his back story, I loved finding out how he died and seeing him still connect with the real world. He was probably the most interesting character from the book.

Most of the other characters in the book have back stories and I loved how the author ventured out and told the tales of the other characters but I sometimes found it confusing as there were quite a few characters introduced at the same time. Some of them do have horrible deaths and of course, how they died is how they appear in the story, and I actually found this very intriguing to see the author’s descriptions of everyone else despite the confusion to start with.

Overall, I thought Dead Rules was an interesting and great idea but sadly it just did not work for me.

Thank you to the publishers for the giving me the opportunity to review this book.