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Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780142406984
ISBN number: 0142406988
Label: Puffin
Manufacturer: Puffin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 321
Printing Date: November 23, 2006
Publishing house: Puffin
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 89500
Studio: Puffin
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Brief Book Summary:
Ever since her father died, quirky Gilda Joyce has been working hard to sharpen her psychic skills. She’s determined to communicate with spirits from the Other Side and become a crack investigator of spooky, twisted mysteries. After wrangling an invitation to visit relatives in San Francisco, Gilda discovers that her dreary, tight-lipped uncle and his strange, delicate daughter need her help to uncover the terrible family secret that has a tortured ghost stalking their home. From poignant to hair-raising and hilarious, this is a behind-the-scenes, tell-all account of the very very first case in the illustrious career of Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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My problem with this book is that I do not like the main character - Gilda. She is a pathological liar. Her "hobby" is spying on people. She is cruel to people who love her, e.g., her mother.
Aside from that, the book is funny.
Rated by buyers 
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Gilda Joyce is a little odd but downright likeable. Inspired by Harriet the Spy (like I was at her age) Gilda has 'career' plans. But Harriet only inspired me to carry around a notebook. Gilda's been inspired to be a psychic investigator.
While she likes to snoop, Gilda does not like to lie. In fact, she has an uncanny way of telling difficult truths in the nicest possible way. So when she lies to the class on the last day of school and says she's going to San Francisco to visit family over summer break - she decides that she should at least try to make that the truth.
She writes to long-lost cousin Lester Splinter and gets an invite to SF. There she meets her cousin Juliet. Gilda and Juliet start as polar opposites but find some middle ground and soon come to enjoy each other's company. Gilda can't believe her luck when Juliet (and the Splinter mansion) provides her with the perfect psychic investigation to follow - what really happened to Juliet's Aunt Melanie?
While the story is enjoyable it was the characters that made this book a must-read. Juliet was hard to like at first. But as we learned more about her, she became easier to like. I liked Gilda's quirkiness. I really enjoyed her heartwarming attachment to her typewriter as a way of showing how much she missed her father. Even though he died of cancer two years - Nick Joyce (Gilda's father) - was one of my favorite characters in this book. Gilda's love for him perforated so much of her life that you couldn't help but like him too.
In summary - this was a fast-moving story, with great characters, good sub-plotting and a tight well-designed ending. I would recommend it mostly to girls in the middle school reading level. Boys may find the ghost-y/spooky aspect of the story interesting too. There's a good mystery here.
Rated by buyers -
Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator is written by Jennifer Allison follows 14-year old Gilda, a girl convinced she has psychic abilities and loves to people watch. She somewhat rudely invites herself to San Francisco to spend the summer at her mother's cousin Lester's home. Once there, she finds herself befriending Lester's daughter Juliet, also 14, and the two of them pair up to solve the mystery of Juliet's Aunt's death years ago. The girls spend their time in a house they believe is full of ghosts, try to figure out a way to get into the house's tower, and learn about each other as they go. Though they originally believed they were incredibly different, by the end they aren't so sure.
Gilda Joyce was a great character, though some of the language was a bit "advanced" for some middle readers. Nothing horrible or disturbing, just mature. I would put this one at 10/12 and up. She has two additional books she is starring in, those being Gilda Joyce and the Ladies of the Lake and Gilda Joyce: The Ghost Sonata.
Rated by buyers -
Gilda Joyce is an opinionated thirteen-year-old writer and psychic investigator who likes embellishing the truth. She's trying to get better, though, and has made herself the promise that if she tells any lies she'll do the best she can to make them come true. Therefore, when it slips out that she's going to spend her summer in San Francisco with relatives, she considers it the perfect opportunity to go someplace -- and it might even be a psychic impulse!
Of course, there's always the minor problem of having no invitation from these distant relatives, and also never having spoken to them. But if you think this is a setback, you have not yet met Gilda Joyce. She sends a melodramatic, pity-inducing, completely untrue letter that will have you in stitches, a letter that mentions her "special" brother who (according to her) has a problem with drinking household cleaners and an overworked mother who toils away at her job as a nurse and comes home just in time to relieve her exceptionally gifted daughter (that being Gilda, naturally.)
Fortunately for Gilda, this letter does not exactly reach Mr. Splinter, the relative in San Francisco. Instead it reaches his secretary, who decides that Gilda is just the sort of companion Mr. Splinter's daughter Juliet needs, and invites her to come stay.
So begins the very first story of Gilda Joyce, a story involving a tall tower and a suicide victim's ghost, and a mystery that Gilda feels DEFINITELY needs her help as a psychic.
This book is absolutely hilarious, and Gilda is one of the best main characters I have ever read. She's funny and smart, and despite her high vocabulary she has absolutely no idea of the meanings of words like "tact" and "boundaries". Always ready to ask prying questions, always willing to do things like dress up and enter Mr. Splinter's office asking for help from the Mafia, she is one character that is definitely worth reading about for many books to come.
Rated by buyers Masterpiece
Rated by buyers -
This book is an amazing mystery, that will quench any reader's thirst for a scare!!!!!
It is twisted with comedy, & suspence!!!!!
I finished it in 1 day it was so good!!!!!!
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