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A review by thelaurajay
Ghosted by Emily Barr
4.0
Go into this book knowing nothing if you can. Stop reading this review right now (especially because I spoil the ending!) and go read this book.
It is a VERY interesting, engrossing and twisty mystery if you get through the first 70 pages. I enjoyed this book thoroughly as the kind of book that sucks you in for a day and you're living with the characters. Joe and Ariel are wonderfully curious about their predicament and I liked how quickly everything progressed and how well plotted it was. Props to this book's editor. Basically everything on the page was great and there for a reason.
My one, tiny, very spoilery caveat with this book is that I leave it feeling quite sad for Ariel. She has found out her dad is *MASSIVE SPOILER* Joe's murderer, and then Mia approaches her at the end of the book, but that's likely her dad's other murder victim...
It felt like at the end we are meant to read it as Ariel's life is going great, now she's known to ghosts as the ghost detective (what a great way to spin this off if the author chooses to do so, instead of humans rights lawyer she can be a ghost rights lawyer), but Mia is clearly the first murder her dad committed that day. So I leave the book feeling sad for Ariel: she is going to find out her dad murdered yet another person (albeit by accident, he states). Will she wonder if he's a serial killer based on the fact that there's now two people he's killed? Mia definitely deserves justice, it's simply sad that it's implied that Ariel will be the one to solve it. It's just...unfortunate that I had this reaction to the ending of this poignant, engrossing book. Perhaps the follow up of Mia and Ariel, if the author chooses to write it, would be just as interesting! It would certainly have further growth, trauma and stakes for Ariel, but I cannot help but feel a further sadness for Ariel when I was hoping for resolution at the end of this book.
It is a VERY interesting, engrossing and twisty mystery if you get through the first 70 pages. I enjoyed this book thoroughly as the kind of book that sucks you in for a day and you're living with the characters. Joe and Ariel are wonderfully curious about their predicament and I liked how quickly everything progressed and how well plotted it was. Props to this book's editor. Basically everything on the page was great and there for a reason.
My one, tiny, very spoilery caveat with this book is that I leave it feeling quite sad for Ariel. She has found out her dad is *MASSIVE SPOILER* Joe's murderer, and then Mia approaches her at the end of the book, but that's likely her dad's other murder victim...
It felt like at the end we are meant to read it as Ariel's life is going great, now she's known to ghosts as the ghost detective (what a great way to spin this off if the author chooses to do so, instead of humans rights lawyer she can be a ghost rights lawyer), but Mia is clearly the first murder her dad committed that day. So I leave the book feeling sad for Ariel: she is going to find out her dad murdered yet another person (albeit by accident, he states). Will she wonder if he's a serial killer based on the fact that there's now two people he's killed? Mia definitely deserves justice, it's simply sad that it's implied that Ariel will be the one to solve it. It's just...unfortunate that I had this reaction to the ending of this poignant, engrossing book. Perhaps the follow up of Mia and Ariel, if the author chooses to write it, would be just as interesting! It would certainly have further growth, trauma and stakes for Ariel, but I cannot help but feel a further sadness for Ariel when I was hoping for resolution at the end of this book.