Dead is So Last Year by Marlene Perez

Daisy Giordano's entire family is psychic, which includes her mom, her two sisters, and her. For the longest time, Diasy thought that she was the only one without psychic powers, but earlier this year, she finally realized it wasn't so. Now, not only does she have psychic powers, but her old friend Ryan became her boyfriend- and she found out he was a werewolf.

It's now the summer before her senior year, and Daisy and her sisters have returned from France, where they were taking a trip with their mother. They went ahead while her Mom took a small job in Paris, but as the job becomes more complicated, she has to stay longer, which leaves the girls at sixes and sevens.

Soon, each of them has gotten a job to stave off boredom. Daisy gets a job at Slim's, whose proprietor is never seen. And there's a good reason for that, Daisy finds, because Slim is an invisible man. But that doesn't prevent him from having a girlfriend, the witch Natalie Mason, who is temporarily living with her mother.

Poppy, Daisy's beach-obsessed sister, gets a job serving snacks on the boardwalk, and elder sister Rose gets a job with Doctor Franken, a noted researcher, in the college science lab.

But something is strange. One morning coming to work, Daisy notices the normally sweets-avoiding and taciturn post office lady gorging on donuts from the place across from Slim's. When she turns to enter Slim's, she sees her again, and when she turns back, the donut-gorging woman is gone. Confused, she goes to work, but soon notices many people in town making beelines for the Donut store.

Even her nemesis Penny Edwards seems to be treating Daisy better. Or is she? Sometimes Penny is nice, as at the party Daisy and her sisters throw at the beach, and sometimes she's an absolute bitch. But all becomes clear when the town council throws a meeting and says that someone is making Dopplegangers in town, and all the sugar-eaters seem to be dopplegangers.

But who could be making them? And why? Daisy isn't sure she knows, but she does know that her Dad, long missing, has been seen in town and seems to have finally returned to the bosom of his family. But is he really their Dad, or just another Doppleganger? And even if he is a Doppleganger, isn't that cause for hope? Because to be duplicated, their Dad has to still be alive... somewhere.

Meanwhile, she and boyfriend Ryan also have to deal with Sean, Ryan's best friend. They are both on the Football team together, and both have bulked up amazingly in a very short time. But while Ryan has the excuse of being a Werewolf, Sean is just a human. Or is he? When he starts hanging around with Wolfgang, who, unlike Ryan, is a bitten, or made Werewolf, whereas Ryan is a born Were.

But Daisy has also seen a group of young wolves causing trouble in town. Who is in this new pack, and what will it mean for all the other werewolves in town, Ryan included. Does this have anything to do with the problem of the Dopplegangers, or is it Wolfgang's payback for not making the football team. Will Daisy and Ryan be able to handle it, or is Daisy in over her head this time?

I like the Daisy Giordano books, and this one was more of the same, with a wonderful, crackerjack story, likeable characters, and a growing sense of the town of Nightshade. Many of the people in town are strange and supernatural, but in practice, they are just people like any other, from Mr. Bone, the town undertaker, who is something called a Skull, right down to Daisy's boyfriend Ryan, who is a werewolf. There's no big sense that supernaturals are any different than the humans except maybe in looks and dietary practices, but they live and love (and date, and make out) just like humans do.

And that's perfectly okay with me. But there is a growing sense that the town itself may soon be under siege by the Scourge- a group of fanatical anti-supernatural creature haters. Why they hate all supernaturals, we don't know, they just do. But they seem to know that the people in Nightshade aren't always people- they are something else, and they want the world to be rid of them.

Daisy may still be in High School, but she and her sisters are having more to do with defending the town and uncovering the plots against it with each book- and that's just fine with me. Growing up and taking on more responsibility for your actions is all part of growing up- something that many of the teens who read this book will also be coming to terms with as they do the same in their home lives. It's nice that Daisy is growing along with her readers, and we'll see her take on more responsibilities in the future.

I was thinking that this series was only going to be a trilogy, but that no longer seems to be the case. The Scourge is still around, her father is still out there, and the series isn't over yet. And I'm very glad of that. This series is by no means finished, and I still want to read more- more about Daisy, and more about Nightshade. I can hardly wait for the next book. This is good stuff, and I highly recommend it.