One of the earliest forms of trauma for most young teens has to deal with the subject of coping with death. Reaper, by Kyra Leigh, follows the story of Rosie Wolfe, which starts with her waking up in the strangest looking hospital-like room. It’s a prelude to the discovery that she no longer inhabits the land of the living. Leigh puts a completely different spin on her examination of death by having her hero dealing with it post-mortem. Not only does the trauma of her father’s death from cancer still haunt her, she now faces some very unsavory tasks in order to win her place in paradise in order to reunite with him. There is a very clear Heaven Can Wait aspect to the story as the after-life has a fully functioning set of rules and procedures governed by the Grim Reaper and her administrative staff.

By alternating flashbacks of Rosie’s life with her current quest, we come to understand how tenuous the bonds of life are and how capricious death can be. They seem both cruel and uncalled for. Leigh is a competent writer who quite deftly tugs, and sometimes wrenches, at your heartstrings.

There was a level of disappointment in that Reaper never delivers a solid resolution except the conclusion that death, in and of itself, leaves loved ones floundering in its wake and that there is never a one-size-fits-all way to deal with it.