So THE HAUNTING OF FRANCES RAIN is neither cheesy nor all that horror-filled but it was actually a pretty good story that had me tearing up at the end of it.Buffie does a good job of setting scenes and pumping up the book with some good ambiance. I really felt the isolation and pseudo-gloominess of the lake Lizzie was staying at and it added to the creepy vibe of Rain Island, where her ghostly troubles started happening. She also took her time setting up Lizzie’s family situation, and Lizzie herself. Nearly half the book is spent hashing out her mom’s marriage issues, her dad leaving, her relationship with her siblings and just how Lizzie herself all around feels about everything. Sure she’s a bit of a bratty teenager but you actually get to see her grow as a person from one end of the book to the other and it’s definitely a nice change from the stock cheese I’ve been reading.Maybe I didn’t look at the cover closely enough but I was under the impression this had something to do with the late 60s and hippies based on the glasses. Turns out they’re far older than that. That tidbit didn’t turn me on the story one way or another but fair warning it has nothing to do with hippies.I was also amused by the Canadianness of the book. No surprise because the author is Canadian and the story is set in Canada so a lot of ‘eh’ going on and the spellings of some words aren’t US English but it only added to the character of the story. Not that Canada is all that different from the US but it added to the setting and the feel of the story that it was someplace other than the US but at the same time still relatable and easy enough to picture.For the supernatural aspect of the story I liked how it was approached. Lizzie was afraid at first (how could she not be?) but once she adjusted to what was happening the fear changed to something of a curiosity and then a minor obsession. Luckily she had Alex on her side so didn’t think she was absolutely insane and actually aided her without impeding her. He was one of the lesser-developed characters and acted as a bit of a love interest for Lizzie but he grounded what was happening to her in reality and legitimized what she was seeing. These ghosts were never presented as frightening; just the act of seeing them was scary. Lizzie was, more often than not, a casual observer of something happening in the past. They did invade her space just once and it was a bit creepy but again, it wasn’t meant to be a frightening experience.I liked how the ending wrapped everything up and didn’t really leave any threads hanging. The conflict between Lizzie’s mom and her step-dad was resolved, the issue with her grandmother was good to go, the sibling rivalry was getting smoothed out, and her relationship with Alex was settling in. But it didn’t feel like a hokey, Lifetime ending. It just felt really resolved and final and it fit with the whole mood of the book. That’s not to say the ending was perfect (or I should say the characters at the end weren’t perfect and smiley and happy) but it was definitely a solid ending.Overall a pretty good book that I think transcends time. It’s a solid story with well-developed characters, excellent scene-setting, and a hint of the supernatural that can be a little creepy but is largely almost soothing and wholly interesting within the grander scheme of the story. I’d recommend THE HAUNTING OF FRANCES RAIN to people even today, I liked it that much.5
Review originally published here: http://www.iheartreading.net/reviews/...I started reading Who Is Francis Rain? years ago, when I was about ten years old. The book didn’t grab me. It dragged here and there, the characters didn’t intrigue me, and although I remember being scared by the ghostly apparitions the first time around, this feeling quickly vanished when more was revealed. But I used my hard-earned money to purchase a copy of the book, so I knew I had to give it another shot. Now, more than ten years later, I dug it up from my book closet and gave it another shot.This book was popular way before young adult was ever a genre – at least not the way it is now, so it’s a bit difficult to classify. The main character fits the target age group for young adult, but the interactions with other characters, story difficulty and development, make me believe it would be more easily classified for a middle grade audience nowadays.Either way, the story starts by introducing us to 15-year-old Lizzie, who is going to spend the summer with her family in her grandmother’s cottage. Lizzie isn’t so keen on the whole family, including Mom’s new husband, tagging along. She doesn’t get along well with her Mom’s new husband, nor with her brother, who has been acting like a doofus since the start of summer. But Lizzie loves her grandmother, who spends hours telling her stories. To escape her family’s bickering, Lizzie takes the canoe to a nearby deserted island, where she finds the ruins of an old cabin and a pair of glasses. Before she can stop herself, Lizzie puts the glasses on, and gets a snapshot into the past, into a time when a mysterious woman lived on the island, and an evil-looking man brought a young girl to live on the island as well.Lizzie has stumbled upon an age-old mystery that she’s somehow connected to. As the call of the ghosts of the island get stronger, and Lizzie begins to wonder more often about the peculiar woman who lived on the island once, Francis Rain, Lizzie wants nothing more than to get to the bottom of the mystery.The story isn’t spectacular, and the stakes aren’t so high. Sure, Lizzie is somehow connected to Francis, but it’s not like there are lives at stake. However, the story was enjoyable, and had streaks of originality here and there. Back when it was written, it was probably rather original, but now it’s a bit dull, and the plot is similar to that of a lot of other stories. Lizzie wasn’t a very pleasant main character as well. Like most teenagers, she can be stubborn at times, often even childish, especially in regards to her Mom’s new husband. I didn’t find that particularly annoying at first, but after a while, it got bothersome. The guy isn’t really all that bad – he’s actually pretty decent – which makes things even worse. What I did like, was how easy Lizzie could accept what was going on, without going down the ‘ghosts don’t exist’ path after seeing proof for herself.There’s a romance story in this book as well, but it’s a small storyline and barely worth mentioning. The writing was all right, although perhaps a bit dull at times.I would recommend this book mostly to middle graders, or to the younger members of the YA audience. It has a fun story if you’re into ghost stories, but don’t expect too much from it.
Do You like book Who Is Frances Rain? (2007)?
Lizzie travels with her family to visit her grandmother in a remote place in Canada. Lizzie's mother is recently remarried, and there is tension in the family over the new step-dad. Evan is Lizzie’s older brother and there is a younger sister. The younger sister adores the new dad, but Lizzie and her brother do everything possible to make his life uncomfortable.Mom is a lawyer and her new marriage is rocky, so the family goes on a two week visit to grandma's house. To get to grandma's house you have to take a boat, which provides a great setting for the ghost story part of the book. Lizzie spends her vacation in a mini canoe visiting a nearby island where she discovers spectacles, when she puts them on they take her back in time to when Frances Rain lived on the island. Who exactly is Frances Rain and why she was alone on an island, so long ago, are questions that Lizzie tries to find out.The story is happily resolved and it is an enjoyable read for pre-teens or young teens who like a tiny bit of romance, ghosts and families with troubles.
—Pauline
