ALA Booklist (Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

When Daniel first meets Lexi at Leisure World, a faux-wilderness vacation complex his dad has dragged him to, he is attracted to her droll, spirited disposition. She is a bright spot in his miserable life now that his mom has split and his dad has started drinking. But something is off: Lexi's ghastly wounds multiply overnight and her watch runs backward. When Daniel starts receiving unexplainable injuries and seeing an ominous man in a bloody suit, he learns that Lexi was killed years ago during the end of daylight saving time. She and her killer are trapped in that extra hour, reenacting the murder d so is Daniel. If this time twisting sounds baffling, it is, but it's also fascinating. Hogan not only delivers chills galore but also creates empathy for his cast of vulnerable, idiosyncratic people with their own desires to change the past. The disturbing undertone to the plastic fun of Leisure World provides a nice atmospheric counterpart for this unusual ghost story.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Daniel's tale is a sturdy coming-of-age narrative; the unpopular, unhappy boy grows closer to his lovelorn father and begins a tentative flirtation with a mysterious girl while gaining confidence and self-esteem. However, there is also a growing sense of apprehension throughout the novel. The strength of Hogan's complexly drawn relationships grounds readers in this unique and eerie sort-of ghost story.

Kirkus Reviews

A teen spends a harrowing week at an English holiday sports complex, where he befriends the ghost of a young woman doomed to repeat the last brutal hours of her life. Since Daniel's mother moved out, his father's been drinking and depressed. Daniel feels responsible for the breakup because his father forced him to admit he accidentally saw his mother kissing another man. Daniel's overweight, classmates bully him, and he hates sports, so when his father takes him to a sports center for a week, he expects the worst. While his father resorts to alcohol, Daniel meets a mysterious girl swimming in the lake. Wearing a watch that ticks backward, Lexi's covered with cuts and bruises, invisible to everyone but Daniel and definitely peculiar. He discovers she's a ghost, murdered during the hour the clocks turned back to end daylight saving time two years before. On the anniversary of her death, she relives the terrible ordeal. Determined to break the cycle and release Lexi's ghost, Daniel finds the courage "to touch someone and then let them go" as the fatal hour approaches. Lexi's appropriately quirky and enigmatic, while Daniel's a vulnerable, likable (but unlikely) hero, whose confidence grows through his sympathetic, quasi-romantic encounter; his first-person narration adds immediacy and resonance. An intriguing ghost story. (Ghost story. 12 & up)