Middling Manifest

Manifest by Artist Arthur

This book gets a good 3 gnomes out of 5 gnomes for being a fun read with some mystical magical goodness thrown in. 

The story is fun to read and it's easy to visualize everything that's happening.  The main character, Krystal is a bit whiny but it's understandable because I think having the ability to see, hear and talk to ghosts would make anyone grumpy.  She also doesn't have the best family life and her anger clouds her judgment of what's going around her.

Kyrstal kind of reminded me of the kid from The Sixth Sense, she just has to learn not to be afraid of the ghosts and thus be strong and help them.  The story starts with a ghost named Ricky asking for help.  At first Kyrstal wants nothing to do with it but after getting to know him she feels that she has to know what happened to him. 

She doesn't exactly have a lot of friends at school so it's a little weird when two people at school really want to talk to her about the tattoo like birthmark that they all have.  Though it does make you wonder how exactly they noticed Krystal's birthmark,  seeing as it's on the back of her neck.  It makes you wonder how they saw her neck without being creepy.  Sasha and Jake are already friends so they are used to each other which adds an interesting dynamic when they start to hang out with Krystal.  They figure out that their M shaped birthmarks are no meer coincedence.  They all have different powers and need to figure out why this power seems to be growing.

There is more than one mystery to solve and a lot of mythology to their birthmarks to get through.  The oddest part of the mystery is Ricky.  He says that everyone thinks that the people he hung out with killed him.  From what I read though, not many of the students even seemed concerned about Ricky's death and that he practically died on school property. 

The pace of the book is slow at first but picks up nicely towards the end and makes you curious about what dark and dangerous forces are at work in the town.  The ending will make you look forward to the next book and wonder if these three can come together as a group, they call themselves Mystyx, and succeed.