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4.5 stars

"There is no ending to this story because, as I've realised, stories don't have endings, only beginnings."

Amy hasn't had the easiest life. She lives with her superstitious single Chinese mother with barely enough money to feed themselves. Her 'best friend', Rebecca doesn't exactly help either; her mood changes as rapidly as her hair colour. Rebecca seems to attract all the boys, and Amy has always just been that nameless girl who follows Rebecca around at school. Yet, when Amy finds and opens a locket in the middle of nowhere, her life seems to look a little brighter. Because who pops out of the locket is a ghost boy named Logan, who died in 1988; and despite the weirdness of it all, Amy and Logan have more in common than they thought and find comfort with each other's company.

What makes this book so much fun are the pop-culture references. The school Amy attends, Middlemore High School, likes to have dress up days in the middle of the week, and the theme they had most recently was the eighties. So Rebecca dresses up as Kylie Minogue (and of course a bunch of the guys dressed up has Jason Donovan, seeing as they are oh-so in love with Rebecca), and Amy dresses as Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? I wish my school would have such random dress up days. Because one of the main characters is from the eighties (Logan), we are introduced to a lot of the slang back then, as well as the music--and even the ads that used to play on the TV back in those days. It just made this book even more engaging.

Amy is such a brilliant character. She's different, a little strange but such a fun character to read about. She's never thought much of herself, and being stuck with Rebecca who apparently looks beautiful doesn't help either. She's not even an Asian stereotype, and sometimes she worries that her mother wishes she was just like Nancy, who is basically THE Asian stereotype. I didn't like Rebecca at all, for that matter. She's so up herself--she knows she's beautiful and tries to act superior from everyone else, and that is one of my biggest pet peeves ever so MUCH RAGE TO YOU, REBECCA. But, that didn't shake my love for this book at all, because it was probably the author's intention to do that.

Guys, we have a mother who is actually present in the book. HURRAH! I absolutely loved Amy's mother. She wasn't treated as some plot device in the story, and gosh, she's such a sweet and intelligent mother. No shame in saying that she was one of my favourite characters in the book. Amy's mother is quite important here, and I really appreciate the author for creating such a realistic dynamic between the two. EXTRA POINTS FOR YOU, MS. MARR!

In all, if you love the eighties, you'll love this book. If you love pop-culture references, you'll love this book. If you love Aussie YA, you'll love this book. I'M 99.99% SURE EVERYONE WILL ENJOY THIS BOOK. NOW GO GET YERSELVES AT COPY.

~Thank you Shirley Marr for gifting me this copy~