Review: The Things She's Seen by Ambelin & Ezikiel Kwaymullina

Author:  Ambelin & Ezikiel Kwaymullina
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers 
Date of publication: May 2019

Nothing's been the same for Beth Teller since the day she died.

Her dad is drowning in grief. He's also the only one who has been able to see and hear her since the accident. But now she's got a mystery to solve, a mystery that will hopefully remind her detective father that he is still alive, that there is a life after Beth that is still worth living.

Who is Isobel Catching, and why is she able to see Beth, too? What is her connection to the crime Beth's father has been sent to investigate--a gruesome fire at a home for troubled youth that left an unidentifiable body behind? What happened to the people who haven't been seen since the fire?

As Beth and her father unravel the mystery, they find a shocking and heartbreaking story lurking beneath the surface of a small town, and a friendship that lasts beyond one life and into another...

The Things She's Seen is the story about Beth who was killed in a car accident.  She has not moved on and has stuck around to help her father.  Her father happens to be a police detective. She helps him solve his latest case in the hopes that it will spark his will to live again.   As they investigate, they meet another teenager who can see Beth as well. 

I'll start by saying that I do not know any Aboriginal folklore or history.  Had I known some of it before hand, this book might have impacted me a bit more in the way that the authors were intending it to. Because of my lack of knowledge, the book ended up being just OK for me.  While I did enjoy the mystery part of the story and the twist, I didn't enjoy parts where Isobel was telling her story.  I could guess at what she was talking about in her tale, but I just didn't like the metaphorical way it was told. The characters were a bit flat for me.  Beth was supposed to be 15 when she died, but she came across as much younger than that. Her father was kind of boring.   It's a short book and does have some beautiful writing.  I think it just ultimately wasn't for me.