Book Review: Existence by Abbi Glines

At First Sight: Pagan Moore has been able to see the souls of the dead since she can remember and, knowing that there is little she can do for them, she usually ignores them until they go away and otherwise leads a fairly normal life in her small coastal town with her best friends.

That is until the day one of the "souls" speaks to her for the very first time. and then begins to somewhat stalk her, showing up at the least expected times to shake her a little. Not to mention that she has started to tutor Harbor High's resident hottie Lief. 

And when an argument with Lief ends up with Pagan leaving school upset and ultimately getting into an accident -something the "soul" tried to sort-of-warn her away from, Pagan realizes that there is a lot more to that soul than what she first thought. 

Suspicion that only grows when the "soul" shows up at her school in the guise of Dank Walker - lead singer of a famous band Pagan has never heard of - just as she has agreed to be Leif's girlfriend. 

Second Glance: Since it says it on the blurb of Existence, I won't feel bad for saying that it turns out Dank is actually Death itself and I have to say that he was the most interesting character of this story. More than Pagan, he's what kept me reading the story and I wished his character would have been explored since earlier on. 

Pagan herself, well, I had a small problem with how she's portrayed because it just seems like EVERYONE wants her, you know? and I was never sure why - well, you get a bit of an idea why toward the end of the story, but it's just an assumption. Lief was not a favorite of mine either, and that was another problem since he's the other end of this love triangle. 

And I also felt like the reveal of things was way too slow for the length of this book - it should have flown by but it didn't. Plus, from the ending it seems like the story isn't over yet, something that I wasn't expecting at all and confused me. 

I did like Pagan's two best friends who are easily the funniest thing about the book - the are an off-again/on-again couple who argue and tease each other often. 

Bottom Line: Existence is a decent read that sometimes reads a little like a fanfiction. But otherwise is fun and has a good pace. Dank is a great character that I can see a lot of people liking, I'm just not sure about Pagan.