A couple months ago, at the beginning of June to be exact, I received Carolyn Ridder Aspenson’s book Unfinished Business – An Angela Panther Novel as a free eBook in exchange for a review. I never expected time to fly so quickly before I could read it. However, I am so glad I was given a chance to read and review this book. What a fun read!!! If you want a tongue in cheek, laugh-out-loud read about dying and the afterlife this is the book to read. Angela is a wonderful character dealing with her mother’s death, and her mom steals the show. I can’t wait to read the next installment of this series. It reminded me quite a bit of The Ghost Whisperer, but with none of the darkness that was found in that TV show.
Even though this book has a lot of hilarity, there are some very serious topics that flow through out the novel. Teen pressures, drugs, sex, death and dying are very serious issues, however, when read about in this setting one is not pummeled with over dramatization of the issues. You are lead through the variety of issues very gently and never made to feel like you had to pick a side. It is hard to explain how reading this very fictitious novel can help you deal with these issues but somehow through the genius of the writing you are left feeling better about your life and better able to handle things life throws at you with a sense of humor.
I really liked this book. It is never graphic in any of the topics and would be a great read for anyone from the ages of 13 and up. The mentions of sex throughout the book, and there are a lot of them, are never graphic. Sex is treated like a part of daily life and not embellished and no attempt to make it erotic, make this a safe book for younger teens to read.
When I received this novel, the author warned me that there were still some editing issues. I noticed quite a few but most were a couple misspelled words and a few sentences that had corrections made to them but were not finished with a word either left in or left out. But these small errors did not distract from the story. One of my downfalls, is that I had this forewarning. Having been an English teacher in a past life and proofing my husbands college papers for the last 6 years, I was actually looking for these errors. Once I got over my hang ups and started skipping over the errors, I couldn’t put the book down. Since I received a pre-published copy, I do not know if these errors were addressed in the finished version. Even if they weren’t you will have a fantastically fun time reading this wonderful story. I give it 5 out of 5 stars!
Pen Scratches 