Books like Marly's Ghost

I have VERY mixed feelings about Marly's Ghost. This is a 'remix' of A Christmas Carol, set around Valentine's Day where a 16 year old guy who's girlfriend has recently died is being a 'scrooge' about love. I think that's fairly expected, personally. He's then visited by the ghost of his dead girlfriend (this is just 4 months after her death, mind you. Nice) who is weighed down by a chain of objects because he won't let her go or move on. FOUR MONTHS. There follows three ghosts who show him things that turn him into a different person overnight, as the story goes.Now, my first impressions were bad. This book made me very uncomfortable. We start with a very heart-wrenching scene of Marly's death and Ben's despair. Ultimately the purpose of this story is that remembering loved ones who've passed is good, but you have to let yourself live on. This is a good and powerful message. BUT this story is a sentence for sentence 'translation' of the original text (which I actually read last week, so was fresh in my mind), and these teenagers speak like Victorian kids even though it's set in modern day. It all felt so strange! If Levithan had taken the story and adapted it into his own novel then fine, but sticking SO closely to the original structure AND language made it weird, and it felt like a bit of a joke. When the token/mandatory gay couple (this is a Leviathan book after all - I'm all for diversity in books, but these characters were strangers and had no relation to Ben and Marly at all) turned up called 'Tiny' and 'Tim' it felt even more surreal and 'jokey'. And a story about a 16 year old girl losing her battle with cancer shouldn't feel like that.The message itself is a good one, and I did have a lot of sympathy for the character. I had less sympathy for the 'friends' who were trying to force him along to a Valentine's party (did I mention it had been four months?) In his own acceptance and growth at the hands of the ghosts Ben turns out some powerful lines, and I definitely felt for the character (in a way you'd never feel for the original Ebenezer, although I think that's kind of the point of a 'Scrooge'). These powerful moments is why I gave this two stars instead of one, but overall all I can say is that this book didn't 'feel' right.This book was provided by the publisher for review. This hasn't influenced my opinion in any way. Obviously.