Croak by Gina Damico

You know the kind of book where you get near the end and think, "No!  I don't want this to be over yet!"  Or when you finish a book and get a strong urge to open it back up to the first page and read it all over again?  For me, this was one of those books.

Lex has beat up one too many classmates, and her parents have decided that living on her Uncle Mort's farm for the summer will fix her.  Lex is not looking forward to two months of shovelling cow manure.  Lucky for Lex, Uncle Mort isn't really a farmer.  He's a grim reaper, and the sourceless fury that has Lex sucker-punching random people is a sign that she's one, too.  Despite the ick factor of finding dead people on the toilet, Lex starts to like her job, and the strange town of Croak, where everyone is a grim.

The toughest part of her job isn't the nasty shock she gets whenever she frees a soul from its body.  It's stopping herself from going after the murderers responsible for some of the dead.  So when unpunished criminals start dying before their time, Lex has a hard time not cheering.  Then a grim turns up dead.  The serial killer has to be someone from Croak.  The punishment for grim crime is harsh, and fingers are starting to point at Lex.

Why do I love this book so much?  For the sarcastic banter, the crazy dead presidents in the Afterlife, and a hundred other awesome things.  The book is snarky and funny and wonderful. Read it and laugh, and then wail with frustration because the sequel, Scorch, isn't due out until fall.