BOOK REVIEW: Signs Of You by Emily France

I received this ARC from Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is July 19, 2016.

Since sixteen-year-old Riley Strout lost her mother two years ago, her saving grace has been her quirky little family in the grief support group she joined as a freshman. Jay, Kate, and Noah understand her pain; each lost a loved one, and they’ve stuck together in spite of their differences, united by tragedies only they understand. When Riley thinks she spots her mother shopping in a grocery store, she fears she is suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress. Then Jay and Kate report similar experiences. Only Noah hasn’t had some kind of vision, which is perhaps why he’s become so skeptical and distant. When Noah disappears, Riley fears she’s lost another loved one. As they frantically search for him, she, Kate, and Jay are drawn into the mystery and Riley finds herself wrestling with her feelings for both Noah and Jay—which have become clear only in Noah’s absence. If Riley is to help those she loves, and herself, she must set things right with the one she’s lost.

Where do I start with this one? I loved the premise and the beginning held a lot of promise. Riley and her friends were initially drawn together because of one thing: they all lost someone close to them. Riley is still grieving for her mother, Cam's brother committed suicide, Jay's father did as a result of his alcoholism and Kate lost her aunt. One thing that struck me was how amazingly unbelievable Riley's dad was. First of all, he showed his love by FOOD! God I love food. I would love a dad who cooked eggs or bread at 2:00am and spent time on a pot roast for Sunday dinner just so he could show his daughter how much he loved her. Too often in YA literature, one parent's death means the other parent tends to neglect the child. I am so happy that did not happen here. Riley's relationship with her dad and a conversation she had with him about possibly moving on with another woman were the best things about this book.

I loved the possible mystery of Riley and her friends seeing their loved ones and what that could mean. The problem was that the mystery behind it was so BORING. You wouldn't think a book about teenagers seeing the ghosts of their loved ones would be boring, but you would be wrong. There was a lot of stuff about a religious relic and a saint and a possible curse and other spirits trying to cross over and it was all just too boring and too much. This book could have been more about these kids trying to move on and I guess to some extent it was, but there was all this other religious stuff added to it and there was a lot of history about some saint that I honestly didn't really care about. So much potential and absolutely no follow-through. It looks like I am a black sheep on this one though because just about every review on Goodreads is four or five stars. Oh well.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.