The Things She's Seen is a novel written by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. The two authors are siblings who have Aboriginal root in Australia. The novel is told from 2 points of view - Beth Teller and a young girl named Isobel Catching. The former has recently passed in a car accident and her still-living father can see and talk to her. He's a detective who's been assigned to a case in a nearby town where Isobel is a witness. Catching has a story she wants to tell; not for help but to be heard.
The format of this book is interesting but I didn't care much for it honestly. I read this book in a day and while I somewhat enjoyed it, I'm disappointed. Beth's story reminded me of The Lovely Bones, because both narrators are dead and are trying to find a bigger purpose before finding peace or some sort of afterlife. This story, however, failed to make me feel connected to the character. Her narration seemed unrealistic not because she was a ghost but because of her vocabulary and how understanding and naive she was as a 15-year-old ghost. She lacked the teenage angst that most girls have, which is probably why I couldn't connect to her. Isobel's story is told through lots of symbolism and short brief sentences. I've never been one to understand poetry easily, so this was kind of difficult for me to read through.
The ending was not surprising and was kind of laid out as it is for readers, but I'm still kind of confused and feel like there's a lot of missing pieces within the story. I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery and supernatural novels and would give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
