This book just wasn’t for me unfortunately. The writing was good but I just couldn’t get into the story.

Another great, creepy modern thriller from Arnopp. If you're familiar with his previous novel, then I think you'll have a good idea of the feel of Ghoster.

Well-written, creepy, and gripping. Recommended.

I am a millennial so I love novels about technology and other things that I have grown up with. Ghoster features social media, heartbreak and horror. Kate was going to move in with Scott but he is suddenly no where to be found. I don't want to give too much away but this is quite a read! I loved the fun moments but I also loved the spooky, chilling moments.

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit for a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own. 

Ghoster 
By: Jason Arnopp 


REVIEW ☆☆☆.5

Ghoster started out well enough, and I was absorbed for the first bit. At some point, the story just started to feel repetitive and slow, and I lost interest. A faster pace would have been better. The premise is good, and I wish the story would have held together. Overall, I did like the idea but wanted more.

A really fun & terrific comedy/horror. Kate has been ghosted by her new boyfriend Scott, on the day she is supposed to move in with him.  He's not there.  And neither is his belongings.  Just a phone left behind.  And the it gets interesting, spooky, fun and crazy!!

This book made me glad I am not dating anymore and didn’t have to date much in my twenties. You never truly know someone, especially with todays world of social media. You might think you know a lot about people, enough to even love them, but really they could be leading a totally different life. If it seems too good to be true, it just might be. Kate Collins, believes that she has met her perfect soulmate and cant’t wait to move in with him but then he disappears and things start to unravel from there. It’s a horror/thriller and its not my usual choice of genres but I found it entertaining and made me want to keep reading. It also creeped me out. Reminds me slightly of Riley Sager’s writing in that it is before and after. Definitely interesting, would recommend to those who are not easily creeped out.

An entertaining and slightly crazy read. This was an eye opening book into today's dating works through online dating sites,  so prevalent in today's society.

I am no longer interested in the content of this book. So, I'm DNF'ing this book for now. I may circle back around to this book one day.

Where to start? I thought this was a thriller and it ended up being horror. I thought this was a social media thriller and really had that mindset. The events just seem to get more extreme that you really need to suspend disbelief for this one. Others have said the same thing. Maybe if I went in knowing this, I would feel differently. With that being said up front, it was still a 3 star read for me. It reminded me of that Black Mirror episode and the writing really was great. I was engaged from the beginning, I just wasn't expecting horror. 

3 stars for great writing that really kept me engaged.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2020 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2020/01/2020-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

I expected this story to be a little bit of a chick lit/Rom-Com kind of book. What I did
not expect was any sort of supernatural elements involved at all and it kind of threw me for a loop. 
I very much enjoyed this story though it was a cute read that I didn't have to give much attention
to because it really spoke to me. It starts with our main character finding the man of her dreams 
on a dating app. Things are going great and moving along quickly, in fact she is due to move in with 
him in a few days time. The only down side is with only a few days till the big move her prince charming
has disappeared. He's stopped answering calls texts, emails, in fact he has ghosted her completely and
Kate has no idea why. The story is told from two different time lines the one where Kate meets Scott 
and falls in love and it talks about how their relationship blooms, then it changes to when he is MIA
and no one knows what is going on. I really liked how it was written that way because it let you as 
a reader try to figure out what was going on before it was actually revealed and it let you see if 
you could spot any red flags that our main character might have missed. What I did find interesting was
the author jumped between a time when Kate and Scott were all lovey-dovey and then to the time when 
Scott is MIA. It was very interesting to see things play out on both sides as the story progressed.
The best part about that was the author signified the change in time by putting a date at the top of
the chapter, that small detail saves the reader a lot of confusion and made the book one million times
more enjoyable because you were able to get right into the story without trying to figure out what
was going on time frame wise. I highly suggest that every one read this book however if you are going
to do it then clear your schedule because once you start you won't be able to put it down until you 
finish it no matter what the time. The best part was when the book went from a chick lit book to a 
supernatural story it was very unexpected and I didn't think I'd enjoy it however I loved every word.
Great read and I'm very glad that I got the chance to check out this story. You won't want to miss it.
The ending was amazing I never saw it coming.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.   Thank you NetGalley.

Ghoster had all the elements to be a great read.   The premise was there.. it really was. 
But something was missing from this book.   Something was missing from the writing and it ultimately left a lot to be desired.   I was pretty disappointed midway through the book..  nevermind at the end. 

It had such potential, it just didn't reach it.  
BUT i still did enjoy bits and pieces of this book honestly.

Published by Orbit on October 22, 2019

Ghoster is a clever variation on a ghost story. It suggests a supernatural basis for the supernatural hold that smartphones have over their users. Are we the masters of our gadgets or, by wiring ourselves to the digital world, have we become lost souls?

Kate Collins thought her luck had finally changed. After dating a string of losers, she met Scott with an assist from Tinder. Convinced that he would be the one to save her from a life of loneliness, she agreed to move in with him. He has a nice apartment with a sea view but it is in a different city, so she gives up her lease and quits her job as a paramedic and readies herself for a new life.

A few days before the scheduled move, Scott goes silent. Texts receive no response. Voicemails go unanswered. When the movers arrive, she has them load up her property and races to Scott’s place ahead of them. Convinced that Scott is not answering the door because he is seriously injured, she breaks in and finds that the place is empty, all the furniture gone, with no clue as to Scott’s whereabouts. Was he abducted and killed? Kate assumes the worst until her best friend tells her that Scott is still posting on social media. The realization that she has been played by Scott is even worse than her fear that Scott was dead.

Having nowhere else to go, Kate squats in the apartment. She finds Scott’s apparently discarded iPhone, figures out his password, and becomes obsessed with the phone’s content. Apart from the usual treasury of porn and a record of Scott’s Tinder contacts, she finds videos of sleeping people and Scott's online diary. None of that is quite as disturbing as the sudden appearance of Scott’s less charming twin brother, the fresh scratch marks at the door, and the occasional appearance of a blue spectral figure.

Ghoster creates the suspense that readers of horror stories demand. For much of the novel, ambiguity drives the plot. Is Scott dead or is he playing a nasty trick on Kate? Is Scott’s brother simply self-centered or is he malicious? Is Scott’s apartment haunted or is there a logical explanation for the phenomena that bewilder Kate? The story works because the reader is never quite sure where it will go.

Kate’s chatty first-person narration also contributes to the novel’s success. Jason Arnopp’s lively prose and his sympathetic portrayal of Kate make the novel an easy and fun read. The story’s message — we should all think about our enslavement to smartphones — is all the more resonant because it never gets in the way of an engaging plot.

RECOMMENDED

As other reviewers before me have stated this book is actually horror that starts out as a sort of love story/thriller/mystery. I used to be a big fan of horror until the psychological thriller genre came on the scene and honestly I would not have requested this book had it been in the actual horror category. But I’m glad I read it and found it very enjoyable! The characters were interesting and well fleshed out and I found myself turning pages faster than I would have thought possible. This could also be a cautionary tale for anyone truly addicted to their smartphone! I will definitely check out other titles by this author.

Short Summary: Kate is moving in with her boyfriend, Scott, but when she shows up in her moving van he’s gone, the house completely empty except for his cell phone. Determined to find him, wanting to know why he’d do this, she starts looking through his phone but the things she finds have her questioning everything.

Thoughts: I wasn’t anticipating the supernatural aspects but it sure did make for a suspenseful, gotta keep flipping the pages to figure out what the heck is going on, and unsettling read.

Verdict: Honestly, I was loving how entertained I was by this one, but the ending was super bizarre and Arnopp went a bit overkill on the “technology is evil message”.

I  want to start this review by stating that this will not be everyone’s cup of tea, however this is very much my cup of tea!! More and more I am starting to realize that I love “horror comedy” as a genre since I also adore Grady Hendrix. 

At times this book did give me a bit of whiplash, and it did seem to be trying to make some faux-deep points about our generations media addiction, but aside from that I thought the plot line was well written, the characters were well thought out, and overall it was a very enjoyable experience!

This book is about Kate who meets someone at a digital media detox getaway that she clicks with almost instantly. Set to move in together, she gets ghosted and must move on from the experience. 

I don’t want to give much more away than that!

I also want to point out that this is very much a horror novel, and not a thriller. I’m wondering if that is causing some of the mixed reviews on this book.

Kate Collins is addicted to social media. In order to crack the habit, she enrolls in a technology detox program and buys an old school indestructible Nokia phone. At the detox program, she meets Scott Palmer. The two hit it off and soon, Scott asks Kate to move in with him. On the day she is meant to move in, she arrives at his apartment in a new city to find it abandoned with no Scott, no furniture, and the utilities cut off. She does, however, find his cell phone. Knowing no one in town, and having nowhere else to go, she crashes in his empty apartment with her moving boxes. In the apartment, she finds some oddities, scratches on his door, the feeling that she's being watched, and a strange phone call on Scott's cell.

Convinced that something bad has happened to Scott, Kate hunkers down to solve the mystery. As she slowly begins to unravel the mystery, she meets people that knew Scott and she also hacks his phone to access his social media, Tinder, texts, and personal diary. Kate discovers that she didn't really know the man she loves as much as she thought. Did these secrets lead Scott to a bad end and will Kate follow?

Let's get this straight, I loved the concept of this book. However, the execution of that concept left me wanting. The first half to 75% of this book is written like a thriller with almost no horror elements thrown in besides some creepy phone calls and an overly aggressive dog. There are supernatural elements to the story in the first half but they are presented in a very nonchalant way with little reaction from the characters. The mystery surrounding Scott is intriguing and kept me involved but I kept waiting for the supernatural or something scary to happen. When the mystery answers start to reveal themselves, the book had felt like it was dragging along and I was too checked out for the finale.

That said...hoooooooooooly crap. The ending was superb. Even though I felt like this book needed 100 fewer pages and I was happy to get to the end, the end did not disappoint and brought me right back to being super invested. I was, and remain, shocked by what transpired at the end of this book.

Jason Arnopp uses horror like he's seasoning food with a broken salt shaker. He sprinkles a little bit, here a little bit there, until the lid falls off and all the horror salt falls out. This is a fun horror/thriller that's definitely worth your time to check out.

This story went in a direction that I wasn't expecting and don't particularly like (just a personal reading preference). It started out very interesting and intriguing but got very dark and scary pretty quickly. I think fans of horror would love this but those who are a little wary to things that go bump in the night may not enjoy it as much. 

I received an e-arc of this book to read and review from the publisher and NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Based on the description, I expected this book to be something different. It was very well written, was not hard to read, and most of the characters had depth to them, but I had a hard time identifying with one the main characters, which can definitely make it hard to stay interested. I don't have to love the character, just understand their POV and with this one, it was definitely difficult to justify a lot of her actions/storyline in my head. Not my usual cup of tea but as I said, it was very well written!

I originally requested this book because I like the concept of people disappearing and the use of social media and cell phones to track people down. And while I may be a huge fantasy, I still need to be able to believe the actions happening in a book. Right from the start I was having a hard time believing the actions behind the main character. I agree and understand with her addiction to social media and why she would stay away from it, that isn't the problem, it came to how she got into Scott's apartment, stayed there, and didn't tell anyone. Also, are you telling me there are people out there that wouldn't top to bottom search their loved one's phone's contents immediately and multiple times when the person they are missing?? The spread out quality of the checks and fear of viewing things, felt like a ploy to expand the book.

I also disliked how every time something creepy and engrossing was starting to happen, we'd flip to a flashback. Every. Time. Then we'd come back and the scary bit would be over and back to the drag we'd go. So yes, there are creepy moments that are awesome, but they'd last a second since we'd be forced back to happier more annoying times. I'm thinking this style of writing just doesn't work for me, but perhaps it does for others.