Book ~ "Saving Casey" (2012) Liza O'Connor

From Goodreads ~ Having been diagnosed with cancer, Cass Goldman decides to opt out of any futile medical care and end her life. While she has some thoughts on afterlife, she never expects to reincarnate into the body of a seventeen-year-old girl named Casey Davidson.

When she awakens in a hospital, Cass discovers two disturbing facts: One, she is now inside the body of a troubled teenager, and two, the former owner of this body committed suicide but only Cass knows that. Everyone else believes Casey has survived but suffered a complete memory loss. Cass has two choices: to take on Casey’s life and turn it around or to confess the truth about her reincarnation and end up in a mental asylum. Given this second chance at life, Cass decides to take on the future life of Casey—the frightening ghoul-faced teen with short, black, spiky hair.

Every person around Cass has an ulterior motive and discovering the truth of Old Casey’s life is more complicated than the “new math” she is forced to learn in school. In addition, Cass has to contend with raging teenage hormones and the prior crimes of Old Casey, which she might not remember but everyone else certainly does. However, her biggest frustration concerns her feelings for her father’s rugged security specialist who sees her only as a teenager and doesn’t want to explore the mutual attraction between them.

Will her second chance at life prove to be worth the struggles she has to overcome?

Eighty-year-old Cass gets the news that she has an incurable brain tumour.  Rather than waste her time on chemo, she takes her beloved twenty-year-old dog, Jess, into the garage and closes the door, starts the car and overdoses.  She wants to die on her terms ... and she does.

She's very surprised to discover that she wakes up in the hospital in seventeen-year-old Casey's body.  Casey has just swallowed a bottle of Valium in an attempt to commit suicide.  Cass doesn't remember anything about Casey's life but is determined to make a positive impact with Casey's life. She gets quite a shock when she sees herself for the first time!

Upon settling down on the toilet, Cass noticed the floor to ceiling mirror facing her and screamed at the sight of the creature within it. Short black hair spouted about its head, black circles surrounded both eyes and fell like triangular knives down the cheeks. Black lips, stretched in horror as if in a nightmare. Pulling up her pants, she moved closer to the mirror.

She was a ghoul, an honest to God ghoul!

The door crashed open and her father stared at her, fear and panic clear in his eyes.

She touched her face. “Please tell me these aren’t permanent.”

His panic remained a second longer as her words filtered into his brain and then he pulled her into his arms. “Don’t worry, we will get them removed—if you want to …”

“If? Oh, I definitely want them removed,” she said.

How can I turn around my life if I look like the walking dead from a low-grade monster movie?

When Cass moves into Casey's life, she discovers that she has a nasty past ... shoplifting, crashing cars, etc.  No one at school will bother with her and the cook in the cafeteria spits in her food.  To turn her life around, she hits the books and starts the painful process of having the tattoos on her face removed.  She discovers what happened when she was thirteen that made her the way she is ... and sets out to fix it.

I thought this was an interesting premise for a story and I was curious to see how the author would do it.

I liked the writing style.  It was well-paced and moved along well.  As a head's up, the language at times is mature and a traumatic experience had happened in the past.  I did have a hard time buying that one person had so much power and influence, though, but I just went with it.

I liked Cass ... her intentions in turning Casey around given all the obstacles were heart-felt and honorable.  She is strong and tough and determined to right all the wrongs even when she is hurt and knocked down ... she never gives up.  Though Cass' maturity was obvious with her in Casey's body, both in actions and language, I wasn't hearing an 80-year-old's voice ... to me it was a younger person, maybe in their thirties.  She acted a bit too hip and accepting given how old she really was.

The ending gave closure to the story.   I'd recommend it if you are looking for something different.