The Lonely Dead

Adele has been on medication for the last seven years to deal with her schizophrenia.  She can see the dead.  Her grandfather thinks these are hallucinations, a genetic mental illness passed down from her grandmother and mother.  Adele has accepted this until now. 

She forgets to take a pill one day and wakes up in a whole new world, one were she has energy and spark.  Everything is great until she sees her dead ex-best friend on the way home from school.  Tori begs for Adele's help.  No one else can see or hear her.  Adele isn't sure she if she's hallucinating, but Tori's body seems real enough, so she makes an anonymous phone call to the police and waits to see if she imagined the whole thing. 

Tori really is dead and buried right were Adele saw her.  Has Adele been misdiagnosed all these years?  Because of an argument, the girls had at a party the night Tori died, Adele becomes the prime suspect, so she teams up with Tori to find out the truth before the police pin the crime on her. 

April Henry's new book is her first with a supernatural twist, and I found it to be moderately successful.  I have heard some people say they didn't like the supernatural element, but I actually enjoyed that aspect of the story.  It is more that the mystery gets shoved to the side to explore Adele's visions.  I think the book just needed to be a little longer so the mystery would have time to develop.  I also have mixed feelings about the mental health part of the story.  I don't think it's a good idea to just stop taking your meds.  That generally does not end well.  However, I do know that people are misdiagnosed.  So...recommended with reservations.