Here Lies Bridget-Paige Harbison

"Heroine, Bridget Duke, rules her high school, but when she crashes her car and ends up in limbo, she must confront the people she has wronged, all of whom want her to go to hell. The outcome of these meetings will decide her final destination."-GoodReads.

Paperback, 224 pages

Published January 18th 2011 by Harlequin

Source: NetGalley.

Bridget is The Teen Queen and gets whatever she wants whenever she wants it. She honestly thinks she has everything and that she is untouchable. But when she weaves a web of lies so thick that it starts ruining peoples lives she starts to lose her grip on everything she values in her life. So she decides to act out in the worst way she can think of; to crash her car and die. Bridget honestly thinks that will show everyone. But when she ends up in limbo she changes her mind and doesn't really want to die. With a jury of some of the people she has wronged the most deciding her fate, will she be able to prove that she can be a good person? Or will they take no pity and decide she's done enough damage to send her to eternal damnation?

This book starts off with Bridget driving recklessly down a winding road, going just a little too fast, thinking about how terrible everyone would feel if she just crashed and died. Which ends up being serious delusions of grandeur because then it flashes back to the days leading up to her thinking this. 
Bridget is not a nice person. She is mean to her friends, disrespectful and cruel to her stepmother, manipulative, and just plain bitchy (pardon my language...but it's true). 
But since it is told from first person you get to get inside Bridget's mind. She is a sad, self conscience, and hurt girl. Though that does not excuse how she behaves, it helps to understand that side of her and why she acts the way she does.


The first half of the story shows Bridget's school, social, and home life. She does nothing to make herself a likable character, but I did feel sorry for her more than once. She uses her mother dying and her father never being home as an excuse to be mean and keep people at a distance. So yes, I did feel bad for her. Didn't make me want to slap her any less, but at times I had sympathy for the girl.
Then the next part of the book is Bridget in limbo seeing herself through her victims eyes and finding out just how awful she is.
That part, and the end felt a bit rushed.  I think less time should have been spent on her life before limbo. When Bridget is in limbo you see a lot of repeating as she is reliving parts of her life, so parts in the beginning weren't really needed.


Here Lies Bridget reminded me a lot of "A Christmas Carol" but taking place in high school, with a girl instead of Scrooge, and the new popular girl showing her her past instead of spirits of Christmas. The story was nothing mind blowing but it was definitely new to me reading a book that I did not like the main character. It was an easy read, pretty quick, and fun to read over an afternoon. 
3 out 5 for Here Lies Bridget.