I think this one was very cute! Girl who sees ghosts and helps them? Great trope! I loved, loved, loved the period party mention - normalizing menstruation for young girls is a must! The illustrations were cute and I think the theme of community throughout was a nice touch.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really liked it, stuck with me & would recommend
I love this concept and this was so cute and thoughtful. Adele gains the ability to see and talk to ghosts with her first period, much like some of her ancestors. This is a multi generational story, with cultural elements, and civic minded with gentrification conflict.

I liked the artwork which was bright and bold. I also liked how the ghosts were differentiated in their depiction.

Thank you to Random House Children’s, NetGalley, and author Sophie Escabasse for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review. Taxi Ghost is out September 3, 2023.

This is enormous fun that is certain to get readers questioning who is in the backseat. The ending is rather abrupt and oversimplified, but it makes the reader wish for more!

Another cute middle grade graphic novel fro.m the author of Witches of Brooklyn. On the day Adele gets her first period, she learns is a medium who can see ghosts. She isn’t sure she wants to help the ghosts, but they figure out ways to help each other.

In this hilarious and heartwarming graphic novel, a young girl's first period brings an unexpected gift: the ability to see ghosts! As she meets these spectral visitors, she uncovers her family's secret lineage of mediums, while learning about the power of compassion and community.

A well written and drawn story where the living and the dead, both want to save their neighborhood from being demolished and turned into malls and condos.

This is a quick read filled with some local history and that sense of pride in where you were born that you don't see as much as you should.

Recommended. Ghost Taxi will be released on Sept. 3, 2024 bu Random House Children's/ Random House Graphics.

Thanks to @netgalley and Random House for allowing me the opportunity to read this eArc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

Taxi Ghost is about Adele, a newly realized medium, who is trying to navigate the world now that she can see ghosts. Ghosts in this world take cars like taxis, hence the name, and have great personalities. I really enjoyed Adele as a character, her great supportive big sister, her anti ghost grandma, and all the characters surrounding her she meets. This was a great time and though I don't think it intends to have a sequel, I would love to read more adventures with these characters!

First of all, I adored the illustrations and the letterings. Very eye pleasing combination. As for the plot, tho… it could be better i think. The ending felt too rushed but maybe thats just me🙃

Fabulous and fun. The positive menstrual representation was probably the icing on the cake with this already lovely story. I also enjoyed that the backmatter had historical information about Montreal and a tickler to visit a historical site.

I loved this graphic novel! It had such a good sense of family both found and born with, and it explored some complex themes. I enjoyed the frankness around girls maturing to puberty and it's oddly comforting to seen it talked about normally as not as a taboo thing.

Adele is ready for a nice, calm winter break. But life has other plans, and boy are they wild! It turns out that her family includes a long line of mediums and she is the newest among them. Though her grandmother encourages her to just ignore the ghosts and not get involved in their problems, Adele cannot help being pulled into trying to help Jules who is trying to save his neighborhood but has no way to communicate with his grandson who is on the brink of selling their home to a shady developer.

This book was fantastic! I loved the story line, the characters, and the art! It all came together in a beautiful mix that had me finishing the book in one sitting! Highly recommend!

It was a pretty good coming of age novel in which the main character experiences both normal and supernatural experiences. The characters were also very fun and represented multiple generations. The art was simple but cute and constant. However, I'm just not too sure if the conflict is relatable for this age range. The housing crisis and the identity of old places is probably not what many middle schoolers are directly affected by. Though, granted this is me being very nitpicky about this part of the conflict. What bothered me the most was how quickly the resolution came. The conflict between the ghosts was solved with <spoiler>part of her powers</spoiler> not previously introduced. It's a very good read overall, but I'm not sure what age range to recommend this book for.

Cute! This one didn't feel groundbreaking to me, but I enjoyed the read.

The art style is easy to look at. I enjoyed the main character, and all of the characters intrigued me. Though I would have liked to have seen them developed more, it was understandable why they weren't, given the combination of format/intended demographic/page count. I appreciated how the topic of gentrification was introduced in a way that allows for younger audiences to understand, and how it was really woven in with the story of the ghosts. Overall, it's a nice read and I could see kids (along with some older audiences) enjoying it.

I thought that Taxi Ghost was absolutely adorable. The art style was so cute and I think the story of a young girl inheriting her medium powers when she hits her womanly time was a great set up. The "period party" was an interesting concept that I wasn't expecting at all especially since they're something not a lot of people talk about.

I love that Sophie added her own ideas about ghosts into the story, they weren't scary, and the "evil" ones were really just some elderly people trying to save their village. It was quiet sweet. One thing that felt a bit rushed though was at the end when Adelle gets these powers to help those who want to move on go. They seemed to give up quickly, but it was never explained what this power was or why it happened the way it did. I hope there will be more in the future to give more backstory.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC read. <3

Quite the enjoyable read. I have read all of the Witches of Brooklyn books, and while I enjoyed them, they did not capture me the way that this book did. I liked all of the characters and the story was well developed and thought through from start to finish. The artwork is consistent with Ecabasse's other books. Bright, colourful, easy to distinguish and with characters who are unique enough that they don't blend together. Adele is a very likeable character who is easy to relate to despite the fact that she has the ability to see ghosts. I also really like that these books are very much about celebrating being a woman and, in this case, Adele gets her powers when she first menstruates so it's a way of affirming her womanhood in a very positive way. Although her grandmother doesn't want to use her powers, Adele does, and so she not only embraces being a woman in terms of her body but also the positive power that comes with it.

The ghosts and their role, as well as the magic that the women in Adele's family wield are well presented, and the whole idea of a soul eater is interesting. I did kind of want the conflict to be a bit longer or have a bit more weight, given that it was such a pivotal moment for so many elements of the story. And the title is a bit misleading, because the taxi part doesn't factor into the story much. But overall, a really fun read and these fell like nit picking.

All in all, a great graphic novel with some good messages and a really fun plot. I do wonder if there will be another book. If so, I will certainly pick it up and ready it.

I loved the style of drawing esp the ghosts and the concepts in the graphic novel is very unique and I enjoyed them so much also it talks about womanhood which I didn’t expect but loved!!!
Overall such a well balanced graphic novel
Also loved the character designs added at the end
Highly recommend <333

A charming, light-hearted tale with gallons of heart, all spun around the amusingly-unexpected idea of a girl who becomes able to see ghosts upon beginning her monthly periods. The ghosts are curmudgeonly, or super-friendly, or chill and laid-back...just the way that humans might be any of those things. These ghosts are far from monolithic. They also appear in a variety of colors. As for where they appear, they tend to congregate near loved ones who are still alive, but also in locations relevant to topics of great passion (like the fight to keep their former apartment building from being bulldozed for new condo development).

The story is quick and peppy, with good conflicting emotions around family dynamics, duty to others, respect for your own self, and all the other things that come along with trying to figure out who you are (and who you want to be) during your teenage years. I really enjoyed all of the supporting characters as well, especially the passionately energetic grandmother who will absolutely put in her two cents no matter what and no matter when.

Props to the author and publisher for being willing to tell a story within which "girl gets her period for the first time" is a light, humorous plot point, and not either something to be never mentioned or something that is incredibly embarrassing and must be examined with grave concerns. This is such a fresh, authentic way to tackling the topic. And really, it actually makes perfect sense - with all of those other changes that come along with your menstrual cycle beginning as you start your transformation into womanhood, why wouldn't you also start being able to see ghosts?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC for unbiased review. This review will be cross-posted to my social media accounts closer to the book release date.

Loved it! I love Sophie Escabasse's Witches of Brooklyn series and loved the brief mention of them in this book! This was a great hopefully first in a series because I really enjoyed Adele and her adventures in becoming a new medium at the onset of her period. In other words, women in her family start to be able to see ghosts when they start their period and I LOVE that they throw period parties! (less)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun graphic novel and it has a great story. This will be a great read for kids. The illustrations are so great and cute.

This is a story about ghosts. It is also a story about gentrification in Montreal. And it is the story of a girl who gets her period and suddenly has the ability to see these ghost, for the first time, when they hitch a ride in the back of the car she is in.
The title doesn’t really tell the whole story, as no book really can. It is more what inspired the book. The author said that after she dropped her kids off at school, and drove back home, she felt as though there were ghost hitching rides in the back seat, and she started thinking of the story that might form from that.
Adele doesn’t know what the ghosts want, or why they are hanging out, and her grandmother,who can also see them, just tells them to ignore them. But she doesn’t, and good thing too.
I really enjoyed this story, because it gave urgency to the whys and wherefores of seeing ghosts. The ghosts didn’t want the old houses torn down, and neither did her grandmother and their friends. And there is the bad guy, in the form of developer too.
This is by the same author as the Witches of Brooklyn, so if the art seems familiar, that is why, but the story is very different. The grandmother is a firecracker, who hates being able to see ghosts, and Adele enjoys her gift, and being able to talk to the ghosts.
I thought I would just browse through this one, but instead I plowed through this, enjoying the story quite a bit, and wondering how it would be resolved.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book will be published the 3rd of September 2024.

TAXI GHOST is the story of Adele, who gains the ability to see and talk with ghosts after getting her first period. It turns out that this superpower is genetic! Adele’s great-grandmother was able to talk to ghosts, which drove Adele’s grandmother crazy. Gran’s only rule in her own house is that there are NO GHOSTS. Period.

Adele, however reluctant, is really interested in the ghosts and their stories. In a week’s time, Adele uncovers a society of ghosts that has been battling developers from gentrifying their town for ages.

I really enjoyed this story. I loved any kind of book that mentions ghosts in a non-threatening way. I really loved the lore that Escabasse wove into the story to make it her own - ghosts can’t really walk on snow, for one. I liked that Adele’s family and the community really gathered around Adele to support her as a medium.

Overall, I think this was such an interesting read. I will definitely be going into Sophie Escabasse’s backlist after reading this book!