After the suspicious destruction of her normal high school, Daisy Fisher gets transferred to Ginger High, a school for students for special powers. But Daisy doesn't quite fit in, as she hasn't discovered her powers yet, which isn’t good, because “normals” who find out about the secret of Animist (a parallel universe full of supernatural creatures) have to be disposed of.  To top that off, students are being attacked, and a war’s breaking out in Animist. Throw in a cute, mysterious boy who’s got a thing for her, and you’ve got an action-packed adventure.

Melissa Burmeister makes her writing debut with Ginger High, a novel full of mythical creatures and intrigue. Prior to reading the book, I took a look at Melissa’s website and biography, which stated that Ginger High was published when she was fourteen! I have to say, this Ginger High is an extremely creative piece of work for a writer of such a young age.  In addition, the book is grammatically sound , which is often a problem in books written by younger authors.

While being a published author is a remarkable achievement for a fourteen year-old, as a reviewer, and there were enjoyable aspects in this novel, I’m obligated to review this book as I would any other, and hand out some criticisms as well. First of all, the book seemed to be rather fast-moving, and many of the characters seemed flat and poorly developed. There was an excess of minor characters that had made so many appearances that I had trouble keeping them straight and remembering who was who. Finally, while the book is written about older characters and marketed towards teenagers, I think the writing style of the book makes it more appropriate for younger readers.

Ginger High follows the recently popular teen formula of girl meets boy, conflict arises, and girl (with help of boy and friends) overcomes conflict. These kind of novels can usually go either way, but for the audience intended, I’m afraid Ginger High falls somewhat short.