Existence (Existence trilogy#1) by Abbi Glines

Pages: 194

Publisher: Wild Child Publishing

Released: December 2011

Plot: Pagan Moore has always seen souls wandering around town since she was little but she's ignored them as much as she can knowing that her 'gift' isn't normal. However one day she meets a dead soul watching her at school, except this time he talked to her, something that hasn't happened before. Something about this soul isn't quite right though...will Pagan see this though?

Good Points: Got to admit I really do love the cover (Cover Check-- its that couple again who appear on loads of books together!)

Also, I liked the idea of Pagan, the main character in the book, being able to see souls from the beginning, something she has always been able to do basically, which differs from most teen books where the character discovers their 'ability' and thus being the reason for the big changes in their lives that show in the story. However, if I'm being honest, the author did kind of make out as if Pagan is seeing these 'souls' all the time and to be truthful I didn't read about that many in the first half of the book.
Character-wise I thought Gee was the best, I loved her arrogant cocky behaviour and I thought it brought added humour to the book.
Surprisingly I really loved the ending which is unusual because normally I don't like that type of cliffhanger but this time I did and will definitely check out the next book because of this.

Bad Points: What the heck. Firstly, I know it's cool to put a weird name in books lately but I think this author takes it a little too far, one of the characters is called Leif and the other Dank which I'm almost certain is a street name for Cannabis.  Also, 'typical-book-guy' alert, this book is filled with over dramatised scenes of 'I want you, I must have you! But I can't, I'm too mysterious and brooding to...' which to be honest I'm getting a bit sick and tired of reading about. (I even laughed when she was speaking his song lyrics back to him and mentally announcing how her 'life was now complete').The main character to the book, Pagan isn't much better in my opinion, I didn't really like her character and I thought she was pretty selfish adding also to the whole beginning relationship she starts with Leif which in my mind was just too quick and really unbelievable. 

Another thing that I didn't really like was at times I thought the writing of the book was a little strange, it sort of felt as if parts of the book that should have been there were missing because of the constant end scene- start new scene that kept going on with Pagan waking up to a new day. 

To Sum Up... Basically this book was an easy, quick read that ticks all the romance boxes but in my opinion lacked a great plot and interesting characters that had proper depth to them. I would have liked a stronger portrayal of Pagan and Leif bonding over their after school classes rather than the 'I've always liked you, even though I've never even slightly shown it before' stuff that the book included.

To be honest I don't know what it is about this author but I'm just not really responding to her writing, this is the second book by Abbi Glines that I have read and although I do believe Existence was miles better than The Vincent Boys, it wasn't good enough to change my entire perspective of this particular authors writing. Although I will continue to read books published by this author to see if my opinion changes, but until then I'm not totally impressed.