Georgia Richter's family runs the local funeral home, so Georgia has always been aware of her mortality. After her grandmother passes away, Georgia discovers she's able to wake up the ghosts of the recently deceased, and makes it her mission to fulfill any last requests of the people that make their way through the funeral home. When one of Georgia's classmates, Milo, suddenly passes away, Georgia is again faced with her own mortality, and will do anything in her power to help Milo move on to whatever comes next.

Funeral Girl really surprised me. I think it does a fantastic job of exploring topics of grief, death, and our own mortality as humans in a kind and caring way. What happens when we die? Are funerals a way to honor the dead, or are they really just there to comfort the living loved ones we leave behind? If you're looking for a quick read that can deal with some heavy topics (without being too morose!), then I think you should read this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Richter Funeral home is probably not the best place for a sixteen-year-old, but when you're born into it, death becomes part of life.  Unfortunately, Georgia Richter's connection with the dead goes a bit deeper than just helping them be laid to rest; Georgia can awaken the spirit of the recently departed.   With one touch, she can wake them and ask them about any final fishes they might have. Being terrified of death, this helps calm her. Normally, she just touches them again and back into death they go. Then, her classmate dies, and he wants help taking care of his final wishes, and he does not want to go into the dark world of deathly sleep again. Now learning to deal with death has a whole new angle, and Georgia not only has to keep the spirit of Milo a secret, but also find a way to help put together the pieces of his death and help others along the way. 

Funeral Girl touches on a lot of topics that folks tend to shy away from. We get snippets of death, depression, grief, and anxiety. Author Emma K. Ohland keeps readers along for the mystery, but also does excellent work making darker topics accessible and something a bit easier to talk about through Georgia. 

Funeral Girl is available September 6, 2022.

This... Isn't what I expected... I almost DNF but I persevered. I went into this thinking it would be more about the ghost aspect, but it was much more about the anxiety and mental aspects

A part of me wishes this book had existed when I was in high school, but on the other hand, I’m not sure I would have been ready. I related to Georgia’s story a little too much. Not the growing up in a funeral home bit, but the all-consuming-anxiety-thought-spiral about death and mortality. It would have been nice to know back then, I wasn’t alone in these feelings. And I think this will help others experiencing the same feel seen.

That is just one of the many reasons I think this book is important, as well as the ace, non-binary and mental health rep. The MC isn’t perfect, and neither are her friends or family, but I found their dynamics and conflicts relatable.

Did I sometimes find Georgia’s choices and perpetual habit of fleeing tough conversations frustrating? Yes. But given her character and struggles I tended to give her a pass. Also, at times, Georgia’s thoughts did feel a bit repetitive. I think the author could’ve scaled back a bit and still got their point across. But other than that, I thought this was a great debut! And bonus points for making me cry!

This book was more morbid and dealt with heavier topics than I was anticipating, but I really enjoyed it. That said, it definitely isn’t for everyone, and I highly encourage potential readers to check content warnings (grief, loss, death, detailed description of corpses, bullying, depression and anxiety, just to name a few). As long as you can handle the CW, I recommend giving this book a read!

This book dragged. Main character was very self absorbed, which is fine, she's a grieving teenager. Her feelings are valid. Then when the *betrayal* was revealed like. Gosh middle school drama. And then when she finally talks to her family and they just brush her off and not one talks. This book was not at all what I thought it was going to be. Which isn't its fault, but had I known, I wouldn't have spent my time

I was expecting a dark comedy about the afterlife where a girl talks with ghosts. I didn’t see the content warnings but you need to. Content warning: This book includes discussions of dying, corpses, grief, depression, and anxiety. In Funeral Girl by Emma K. Ohland, 16 year-old Georgia Richter can awaken the spirit of the nearly departed with one touch. With the next touch, the spirit disappears to a mysterious fate called death. G, as her friends call her, has an all consuming anxiety about death. Her dad inherited his family’s business, the Richter Funeral Home. After her Grandma’s death and her personal introduction to grief, she becomes haunted by a high school classmate, Milo D’Angelo, who sat behind her in a class. She didn’t know him very well in life but in death she comes close by pretending she knew him better and by granting his final wish. This book was a hard read with details about the death industry, embalming, grief and anxiety. It’s not all doom and gloom but about relationships with family, friends, acquaintances, the dead and ourselves. Thanks to NetGalley, Lerner Publishing Group and Carolrhoda Lab for the ARC.

Funeral Girl is a brutally honest book about death and for some readers could be upsetting. I liked how the author focuses on the horrific side of death and its finality but also throws the supernatural twist in that the main character can speak with the dead. This was a really serious book and I was hoping for more of a focus on the supernatural concepts but it definitely dives deeper into the death side of it. Readers who aren't bothered by detailed funeral arrangements and processes that enjoy a supernatural twist on a girl who lives in a funeral girl are really going to enjoy this one!

My heart feels complete after finishing this book. I have a lot I want to say but I’ve binged the last half of this book and I’m exhausted. But just know I loved this, it’s on my favorites shelf, and I will absolutely be recommending this to everyone.

After the death of her grandmother, Georgia gains the power to draw out the spirit from the recently dead. She uses this power to ask them their last wish or if they had anything they wanted to say to their loved ones. When Milo, Georgia’s classmate, dies in a tragic hit and run, she has to deal with what that means, both for her power and for herself. If someone her age can die so suddenly and tragically, what does that mean for her?

Georgia runs away from everything and she’s well along in the process of cutting literally everyone off. Her brother, her best friend, her parents. It becomes repetitive over the course of the novel. When things get hard, Georgia will run away. She will have a conversation with Amy, her best friend, about how she’s never there for Amy. Georgia will apologize and Amy will accept it, or they won’t, and Georgia will feel bad but not change her ways. The conversations and dialogue didn’t feel natural for the characters, didn’t feel like their own unique voice.

I wanted more ghosts. Milo disappeared for several chapters at a time, even though I thought he would play a larger part. He’s a ghost and I was promised more ghosts than what I got. Also, I wanted some closure as to what happened to Georgia’s grandmother.

Past events were alluded to in vague terms and then revealed in what I thought was an odd way, too blunt. It felt unnatural and unbelievable in the context of the story.

I love the inclusion of queer characters. Georgia is asexual and describes herself as such, and Amy is probably non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

This book is an easy read, perfect for middle grade readers or young-young adult. The book deals with character death (minor), panic/anxiety attacks, grief, and talk of death in general. Nothing is too graphic, but the process of embalming is described in some detail.

Funeral Girl is a debut novel by Emma K. Ohland and is a book about grief and anxiety.
Georgia is a 16 year old who lives in a funeral home and can see the ghosts of those recently departed. With her touch, she can awaken the ghosts and it is her mission to find out their last wishes. Until a classmate dies, and she is forced to truly deal with her anxiety about death and grief.
Overall, the book was 3.5*. I really enjoyed how it tackled grief and anxiety. There was also wonderful ace and nonbinary representation. I just felt like the book dragged out a couple of the side storylines which made it a little difficult to read at times.

Thank you #netgalley for the ARC!

I want to thank#Netgalley for letting me read an eArc of #Funeralgirl in exchange for an honest review.

Georgia Richter's family owns the funeral home in her town. Her brother is thrilled to get to take over the family business someday but Georgia has been haunted by it's ghosts since her Grandmother passed away when she was younger. To deal with her Grandma's death Georgia went to the freezer to get one last look at the woman she adored and to sate her curiosity about death. What she didn't expect was the moment she touched her Grandma's cold flesh was to see that same woman standing in front of her asking if Georgia was alright. In absolute fear Georgia breaks down screaming and her family finds her on the floor in the freezer.
After this rumors begin to fly at school that she sleeps with the dead and she becomes known as the Funeral Girl.
As she grows she decides to use this gift she has somehow obtained to wake the dead when she is able and to try and complete their last wishes so they can move on. But when a young man in her class passes away and his body is delivered to her families Funeral Home she is faced with death in a whole new and very personal way.
Georgia wakes Milo for him to realize he is no longer part of this earth and Milo doesn't want to leave, he wasn't ready to go and worries for his family. Georgia and Milo strike up a friendship and after time he begins teaching her and helping her to mend her relationship with her family. However Milo begins to fade, Georgia has never kept a spirit on this plane for more than a few minutes to an hour, it has not been days. When she tries to send Milo on his spirit won't go even though he says he's ready. There must be more he needs but can they find out what it is before he fades entirely?

This one is just such an empathetic and gentle but unflinching portrayal of some of the hardest and most incomprehensible feelings and thoughts I have read.

Funeral Girl reads like it was inspired by a lot of other well crafted funeral home stories, which is a very hyper-specific genre. In comparison to the likes of Pushing Daisies or The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried, it falls a little flat. There are several issues the protagonist faces- her fear of death, her friendship troubles, putting her new ghost friend to rest- but it all comes across as lackluster, just building blocks put together in a way that is technically fine but lacks a spark. Each of the plots feels like it's not explored all the way to the end, and we never. get the satisfaction of seeing a story through. Readers might be drawn to the book for its representations of a-spec and nonbinary characters, but without much else to engage with, they also might be better off with a different story. There's nothing WRONG with Funeral Girl. But there's no spark to it either.

'Funeral Girl' is a wonderful debut novel by Emma K. Ohland. It follows the story of a 16-year-old who struggles with morality. I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.

Initially I was very excited to pick up Funeral Girl based on its themes and the setting--everything about it seemed right up my alley, but I was ultimately disappointed by the book itself. Our MC, Georgia, has a deep-seated anxiety about death, which is a problem given she lives in a funeral home. When her grandmother dies when she's 13, she discovers she has the ability to summon the ghosts of the dead people she touches, leading her to touch all the dead bodies in the funeral home, chatting up the ghosts for a few minutes, and then fashioning a scrapbook of mementos from these interactions. All fine. The problem begins when Milo, a boy from school, dies in a hit and run. Georgia immediately becomes obsessed with his death--crying over this boy (whom she doesn't know) and letting his fate dictate every waking moment to the point that she starts to ignore her only friend. You could say she does this because her anxiety is that bad, but the book spends so much time throwing shade at people who make a show over grieving over people they don't know that it all seems...weird. Very weird.

Ultimately, Milo's body winds up at Georgia's funeral home and she touches him, summons his ghost, and Milo doesn't want to go to the great beyond, obviously, so he winds up sleeping on her floor and things start to unravel. He asks her to help his parents (how? she doesn't ask.) and so Georgia starts lying to Milo's parents in order to insert herself into their lives, which is also deeply weird. Then her friendship starts to fall apart, not to even mention the book keeps hinting at this falling out Georgia had with her own brother and previous best friend (it takes it until 64% of the way in to finally, blessedly, TELL US what the falling out was over, and only after Georgia has to call her on the rocks best friend to remind her what the something even is, which...okay...). Why keep something that is so pertinent to why this character is the way she is a secret was maddening to me, since I never could figure out what Georgia's deal was. Sure, her grandmother died, but I was never quite sure of how close they were to begin with, and I certainly didn't pick up on any resounding effects of this great betrayal of her ex-best friend. The book even minimizes the damage of this betrayal after the fact because it was when they were 13 and who remembers or cares what happens when you're 13 (according to this book).

So, generally, I had a big disconnect with the main character here and I didn't particularly care for how this big secret was dealt with (why was it a secret?!). Things seemed to happen for the sake of the plot, not because it made sense for the character(s), and I found the whole thing underwhelming. Additionally, the writing was plain and simplistic, with the characters and their actions bordering on too middle grade for the young adult audience this book is marketed toward. I would say it's definitely a book for younger readers (13 and under), if you can overlook the sprinkle of curse words. Ultimately, this fell flat for me.

i knew almost nothing about this book going in, and it was anything like i expected it to be, but i loved it so much. i thought this was going to be an urban fantasy story, and while it is, it is so much quieter than i was expecting. the fantasy aspects are much more minimal, and the story is entirely character driven. it had so many of the things i love: ghosts, queerness, complicated familial relationships, strong and developed friendships . . . it was beautiful and i absolutely adored my time with it.

I didn't know what to expect from Funeral Girl. The main character is named Georgia, like in Dead Like Me, and she lives in a funeral home, like in My Girl and Six Feet Under, so I was on board. For some reason, I thought this might be a dark comedy, but this is a very emo book. The death of Georgia's grandmother rocked her, and she attempts to figure out what happens after death by talking to ghosts at her family's funeral home. The main crux of this book is Georgia working through these fears and feelings and it is very comforting if you have or have had similar fears and thoughts about death.

I was excited for this book because I was eager for the paranormal aspect. I wasn’t expecting the emphasis on the friendship, relationships and grief. I also didn’t really understand what motivated the MC to engage with the spirits. The MC, Georgia, always felt just out of reach. Some of the side characters lacked dimension and made it feel unrealistic. It was more about her every day life and less about the spirit contact. The pacing was also a bit slow and made it difficult to maintain interest. It was an ok read and I would suggest others read it if they enjoy paranormal stories.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC.

I have read several books about ghosts and I always enjoy them. Some are scary, some are funny and some are sad. This one was all of the above and then some.
Many times we are taught how to deal with grief that isn't the best way for us. Trite comments, not talking about it, or any other way to deal with grief is unique to each of us and we must find the best way to cope for ourselves. I thought the author did a great job bringing in different aspects of the grieving process and how no "one size fits all".
I will admit I did shed a tear or two. Mainly because things got resolved and everyone could move on.
This is a great book to open up communication and figure out how to deal with death and also life.
So enjoy and love life!

This is a YA novel about a girl whose family owns a funeral home and struggles with her crippling fear of death. While she can communicate with ghosts, it doesn't really add a paranormal element so much as provide a way for the MC to deal with her fear. Added into the mix is the MC's anxiety over her asexuality.

While the book has some positives such as a young person navigating grief, on the whole it fell flat. I couldn't find a way to relate to the characters and the plot was slow

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC