tw: death of a family member

I had high hopes for this, as it takes place in the Wisconsin Dells and if you are Midwestern you know the nostalgic pull of that location. Having never read a book set there, plus this being mixed with a paranormal element of our main character seeing ghosts, I thought this would be kitschy fun. Unfortunately, this didn't land for me. Firstly, the characters meet right away in the first chapter and Ray is already very enamored with Sabrina. But he really has no reason to be. He doesn't know her, barely talks to her because she is so socially anxious that she basically runs from him, and yet he still feels drawn to her for no obvious reason. So their relationship already started off on shaky ground for me. Then, there were a lot of plot points, particularly around the ghosts, that were so obvious that I was left waiting for most of the book for them to be revealed because I knew where it was going. This isn't always a bad thing but in this case those reveals had no payoff. Also, Sabrina has pretty severe anxiety and while some of the things she did and how she described anxiety were spot on, it didn't feel real to me. I'm not sure if the author has anxiety herself but this felt like someone writing about something they've heard about and so it didn't feel genuine. Lastly, we have a theme that I hate and that's the mean girl. Sabrina has a bully that has bullied her since they were children and they are now adults. While I'm sure that some people are that awful, the bullying still felt like middle school bullying when adult bullies have totally different tactics so this felt so flat. All of these elements kept me from being very invested. I still liked the backdrop of The Dells because so many places mentioned were places I've been but I do wish this had more of a pull for me than it did.