Title: Call Me Grim
Publication date: September 9, 2014
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Elizabeth Holloway
The truck should have turned Libbi Piper into a Libbi Pancake — and it would have, too, if Aaron hadn’t shown up and saved her life. The problem? Aaron’s the local Grim Reaper… and he only saved Libbi’s life because he needs someone to take over his job. Now, Libbi has two days to choose between dying like she was supposed to, or living a lonely life as Death Incarnate. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
And the choice goes from hard to sucktastic when her best friend shows up marked: condemned as a future murderer. Libbi could have an extra week to stop the murder and fix the mark… but only if she accepts Aaron’s job as Reaper, trapping herself in her crappy town forever, invisible and inaudible to everyone except the newly dead. But, if she refuses? Her best friend is headed straight for Hell.
Call Me Grim is one of those stories that early on you figure there is no way this can end happy. There is no way out of this conundrum. You kind of rack your brain trying to figure out solutions and just have to wait until the end to see how it all pans out.
There a lot of interesting characters. In the one category are the people that Libbi interacts with because they are going to die. The other people are the ones that Libbi is close with. Her mom, brother Max and best friends Haley and Kyle. Then of course there is Aaron the Grim Reaper
I really liked this plot. There is a Grim Reaper that runs eachs area. They call it territories but I was thinking about it like districts. Each Grim is like their constituents representative to the afterlife. When a Grim Reaper wants to retire they must find someone meeting the criteria to take over their job. So the Reaper saves their life instead of letting them die at their scheduled time and then gives them a choice either die at the same exact time they were supposed to die 24 hours later or take the job of being a reaper. Sounds like an easy choice until you hear the rules. Then it doesn’t seem so fun.
The thing about this story is that is one main plot with little branches of things that came off of it. Different character interactions and tiny mysteries to solve. You really see how the characters affect the people around them. I caught on to some of things early on. I mean come on Libbi how did you not see that. Even Aaron’s mystery. Even so I was still surprised by the tiny details and it was difficult to predict the ending. It could go in many different directions.
I like the pacing and the writing. I thought everything flowed easily and it didn’t feel like anything came out of left field.
I really enjoyed Call Me Grim and I think it’s good if you are looking for something a little different. Death is unavoidable in this book since it’s about Grim Reapers and has just enough mystery to keep you on your toes.
