She Smells the Dead

She Smells the Dead by E.J. Stevens

Publisher: Sacred Oaks Press
Release date: September 9th 2010
Pages: 165 pages
Source: For review from author
Summary (from Goodreads): It's the beginning of senior year and Yuki's psychic awareness of ghostly spirits is threatening to ruin her life. Her ability to sense spirits of the dead isn't glamorous like on TV. SHE SMELLS THE DEAD. Yuki is being visited in her dreams and suspects that her friend Calvin is involved in something strange. Will Yuki be able to save the spirits and herself?

My review: I'm really glad that I read She Smells the Dead; it's a very refreshing book with a twisting plot and astounding description.

The thing that stood out most out of the whole book was the originality. Yuki smells the dead, quite literally. That definitely is not something that I have ever seen before, though seeing the dead is quite a common subject in paranormal young adult novels. The whole storyline is original, including the take on wolves that I had never seen before.  It was very unique, and a refreshment from all the usual.


She Smells the Dead was filled with funny, intriguing, and witty characters. Yuki was a character that was easy to relate to, other than smelling the dead. She wasn't the only one that was easy to relate to; Cal, Simon, and Emma were all great character. They all kept me laughing throughout the book, but also curious as to what would happen to them.

The one thing that I thought could have been better was the plot. In the beginning, I had no idea where the book was going to lead, and it continued like that throughout the whole book. While I really liked this aspect of it, I found that the climax was rather. . . missing. There was a bit more action there, but even then it still wasn't huge next to the rising action.

She Smells the Dead is a book that I would recommend to anyone who loves paranormal novels!

My rating:
Characters: 4.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Writing:4.5/5
Originality: 5/5

In total,