Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck
Reviewed by AimeeRatings
Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content
LANGUAGE
VIOLENCE
SEXUAL CONTENT
ADULT THEMES
Title: Three Quarters Dead
Author: Richard Peck
*This review refers to an Advanced Reader’s Copy. Three Quarters Dead will be available for purchase October 28, 2010.
Ratings Explanation
Violence: Kerry’s friends persuade her to enter someone else’s house with a stolen key. She leaves a baby doll with its throat slit and fake blood on a bedroom pillow. There is a car accident and 3 girls die. It is later described in detail from the dead girl’s point of view. Tanya calls the dead girls back to life. Kerry sees Natalie’s hand. “It wasn’t even hers. It was withered and worse. It was shrunken, spotted, and greenish…oozing something that wasn’t blood.” Makenzie “had no face. She had been dead for weeks”. Tanya comes after Kerry and Spence with a knife. Kerry and Tanya fight for the knife.
Sexual Content: “It was like an orgy of grief.” The girls put on bra’s that give “bosoms that could take us anywhere.” Several references are made to a “peekaboo” bra.
Adult Themes: Some girls think another girl has had an abortion and are cruel to her. Kerry thinks doing bad things is like an initiation to the group. Peer pressure is huge. The kids go to parties and after are “zonked”. Kerry sees a grief counselor. Kerry repeatedly lies to her parents and others.
Synopsis
Kerry believes her life has value now that the three coolest girls at school have noticed her. She is willing to do anything to be a part of their group. Then, unexpectedly, those girls are killed in a car accident and Kerry finds herself adrift and alone, full of grief and feeling “three quarters dead” herself. One day Kerry receives a text from Tanya, one of the dead girls, telling her to meet them in New York. Kerry goes and what she finds will send shivers down your spine!
I am quite guilty of judging this book by its cover. I have actually never read a book quite like this before because I usually steer clear of anything that claims to be even remotely scary. I do not like to be scared. I didn’t realize that this book was a “ghost story” when I started it. Was I scared reading this book? Nope. And I even read it late at night! I was oddly interested in it though and I have to admit, I did continue to think about it after I was done reading it. My favorite line from this book? “People are always gone before you expect it.” I would recommend 9th-12th grade for this book.