Finally finding the time again to review a book I finished recently. Yay. James L. Sutter’s The Ghost of Us was a spontaneous purchase while looking through the queer books at a bookstore in either Essen or Bochum (does anybody else know the phenomenon that a different bookstore of the same big company seems to have a completely different offer sometimes and while you just go blind in your ‚usual‘ bookstore you suddenly discover ten times more books in a different branch? anyway…). I guess we were charmed by the „fake dating“ trope. This year I finally managed to read it and here’s my opinion.
First of all, before starting I gotta say I was … uhm … warned? Alarmed? Because a close friend of mine, whom I got to know via Fanfiction and who, when it comes to queer books at least, has a rather similar taste, read the book as well and when I saw her rating on StoryGraph I was like „Oh no.“ I trusted her rating and while at first I was trying my best to not let it influence my own thoughts, I soon discovered what I guess are the reasons for her rather low rating. But you know, it’s hard to judge if you’re being neutral or if your judgement has been influenced by something else, so I wanted to mention it here. Anyway, let’s dive deeper.
Short info: WLW, bisexual protagonist, (more or less) diverse characters, ‚major character death‘
The Plot
Cara Weaver is a teenage girl from a relatively small town which she’s pretty much sick of. There’s hardly anything she wishes more than being able to leave and restart somewhere else after high school. Unfortunately she wasn’t accepted by college and while her best friend Holly will leave for a Bible college, Cara remains stuck in her hometown where everyone knows her, due to an incident that qualifies as cyber bullying, as „scarf girl“. She’s pissed and she’s not willing to give up. She sees one more chance to make it out of town: as a wannabe ghost hunter with her own YouTube channel, Cara wants to prove to the world that ghosts exist. With Holly’s help, she sneaks into an old factory where a boy from town, Aidan, had died a year before. While she still fails at recording any useful proof of the existence of ghosts, she still ends up being haunted by Aidan.
Aidan who used to be a popular guy at school – until he died in a tragic accident while urbexing the old factory. He left behind a mourning family and his ghost stayed in this world, closely attached to both the factory and his sister Meredith, who seems to suffer massively from her loss. He is convinced that the reason why he can’t move on is that Meredith is so unhappy and that it’s his task to help her find joy in life again. So he teams up with Cara and convinces her to try and romance Meredith with the goal to take her to prom. In exchange, Aidan is supposed to help Cara prove the existence of ghosts like him.
What starts as fake dating soon turns into a real romance. Except that Cara is deeply woven into a web of lies which isn’t exactly a solid foundation for a happy relationship.
The characters
(this part may contain spoilers)
The main protagonist of the book is Cara Weaver, a teenage girl just about to graduate from high school. She has her own ghost hunting YouTube channel which she sees as the only way out of her hometown which she hates so much. She has a best friend called Holly, who helps her with her channel while also running her own YouTube channel about religious beliefs. Holly and her boyfriend Elvis, however, are Cara’s only friends. The rest of the world turned their back on her when she became victim to an embarrassing event of cyber bullying that made her known as „scarf girl“. The whole issue adds to her desperate wish to leave her hometown. Thanks to the „scarf girl“ incident, it is common knowledge at school that Cara is at least bisexual, which is why Aiden knows about it and decides that she’s a good choice to try and romance his bisexual/lesbian (I’m not sure if the book is explicit on that) sister Meredith.
I personally have to say that throughout the entire book, Cara appears selfish / self-centred, envious and just utterly unsympathetic. I couldn’t bring myself to liking her for a single second. She’s angry about her best friend Holly moving away for Bible college, she’s absolutely ungrateful for anything Holly does to her and constantly thinks in the nastiest way about „perfect, pure and morally superior“ Holly. Cara even considers herself Holly’s „charity project“, hence implying that their friendship is not real but rather something Holly does to seem even more like a perfect christian.
Normally I can find at least a bit of sympathy for characters that have become victims to bullying. Cara doesn’t get anything of that because of the way she treats basically everyone around her. At some point, she starts considering Aidan her friend because she enjoys having someone to talk to. Then she starts focusing so much on him that she believes that when Holly leaves, at least Aidan will be stuck with her forever, which, again, doesn’t really seem like a real friendship out of respect and sympathy for each other. She’s just happy that she won’t be alone.
Concerning Meredith, Cara does fall in love with her, but funnily enough she never even seems to notice that when Holly and Elvis (and Aidan) leave, Cara will still have Meredith. She is also made aware of Meredith’s struggle because she always felt like Aidan’s +1 and never like someone who was liked for who she is. Cara even notices that she herself is just another person that only cares about Meredith because of Aidan. And still she decides to keep up with the charade.
Speaking of Aidan, he used to be the popular boy at school, but also a loving big brother who used to care a lot about his sister Meredith. He more or less dragged her along almost wherever he went to have her included and even after his death he can’t let go of her. His ghost is stuck and he has to see how much his sister is struggling with his death and her loss. When Cara becomes the first person to finally notice his presence, he makes her out as his „tool“ to help Meredith feel better. He is convinced that he will only be able to move on by making Meredith happy again and following his signature line „Boobs are the original antidepressent“ he decides that the best way to achieve Meredith’s happiness is finding her a romance. In exchange, he agrees on Cara’s deal to help her proving that ghosts exist. So while he deeply cares about his sister and, quite a lot of times, at least seems sympathetic and seems to care about Cara as well, his motifs are questionable. And the thing that annoys me about him is
Yet, I still think he isn’t as insufferable as Cara, who constantly wails in self-pity.
Meredith, Holly and Elvis are much more sympathetic and likeable characters. In Meredith’s case, it shows that she’s not only mourning her loss, but she’s also isolating because Aidan used to be the reason why she had a social life, and now she had to come to terms with the thought that no one ever liked her for being herself. Holly and Elvis are loving and caring friends and while Holly’s voice of reason might sometimes seem a little bit annoying, she’s usually a genuinely good soul.
My overall
I think it already comes across that I’m not the biggest fan of the book. I didn’t hate it. I gave it a 2,75 star rating on StoryGraph because it kept me entertained at least a bit. But I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to liking Cara. Her final „character development“ doesn’t really seem convincing. The ending didn’t really feel deserved, but rather rushed because „urgh, this needs some kind of happy ending“. Excuse me, but Cara hurt Meredith deeply and the only reason she is forgiven is
LAME!
Another thing that bugged me a little was basically … the relationship between Cara and Meredith. I’m sorry, maybe I’m the completely wrong person to judge that, but the way Cara is lusting after Meredith from time to time was a great reminder of the author of the book being a man. Because … Idk, sorry, but Cara’s thoughts on Meredith’s body felt much more like the thoughts of the average cliché teenage boy. I might sound naive, but somehow I’ve never really had the impression that girls, especially young girls, that are attracted to women are so damn obsessed with reducing a woman on their physical features. It really gave me an ick because it didn’t feel … I don’t know. I don’t think „natural“ is the right word, but it felt pretty much out of place.
I used to like fake dating stories and I’m a sucker for romance with a bit slight paranormal touch. But this book … just wasn’t it. The fake dating happened for the worst reasons ever. Fake dating is entertaining in the kind of „urgh, I am having this horrible family dinner, please help me get through it“ kinda setting. It might even be entertaining in a „let’s pretend we’re a couple so that the popular couple doesn’t get voted as prom king and queen“ kinda setting. But fake dating someone GRIEVING THE LOSS OF A BELOVED FAMILY MEMBER?! Tbh now that I’m thinking about it I don’t really know why I bought the book in the first place because the whole idea just seems cruel to me in hindsight. I don’t know. I guess the blurb doesn’t read as bad as it feels now after reading the story.
Nah. Just nah.
