Ballad for a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield

🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:
Everyone knows seventeen-year-old Grace Foley is a bit mad. She’s a prankster and a risk-taker, and she’s not afraid of anything—except losing. As part of the long-running feud between two local schools in Swanston, Grace accepts a challenge to walk the pipe.

That night she experiences something she can’t explain. The funny girl isn’t laughing anymore. She’s haunted by voices and visions—but nobody believes a girl who cries wolf.

As she’s drawn deeper into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding missing girl Hannah Holt, the thin veil between this world and the next begins to slip. She can no longer tell what’s real or imagined—all she knows is the ghosts of Swanston, including that of her own mother, are restless. It seems one of them has granted her an extraordinary gift at a terrible price.

Everything about her is changing—her body, her thoughts, even her actions seem to belong to a stranger. Grace is losing herself, and her friends don’t understand. Is she moving closer to the truth? Or is she heading for madness?

*I received this copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book at first. I wasn't a huge fan of Grace at the beginning of the book because she was a bit obnoxious and self-centered. However, she gradually changed due to what she was forced to deal with over the course of the book. She came to appreciate the things that she took for granted in her life and became a stronger, more focused person.
I thought that the book had a good pacing to it with everything happening at the appropriate time. The haunting happened gradually which was shown through the changes that were taking place with Grace. I enjoyed the creepy tone to the story. It wasn't overdone and the author had an interesting take on villains and heroes in the story. Things are not always what they seem in the book and the twists that are included in the book make sense due to the clues that the author weaves into the story.
I may have missed it but I don't think that the author ever explained the how or why of how Grace ended up being haunted. Everything else in the book is explained really well and I appreciated the author's attention to detail.