Thank you to NetGalley, publishers, Kate Anderson for letting me read this arc!!

It definitely screams YA, which is okay! I thought the story wasn’t too complex, so you didn’t have to do too much thinking about the plot or the characters. I enjoyed the representation of the POC, queer community!
I do wish the characters had more depth to them, but I did love Olive’s personality, I just wish there was more to the characters, whether it be more background information, or conversation between the characters.

The one thing that I wasn’t absolutely sold on was the dialogue. Some was kind of cheesy, but some sentences I could absolutely see a teenager saying, my teenage self included.
Overall, I don’t think I’d recommend this to many of my friends because of it being YA, but if you’re looking for a quick, easy, and slightly spooky read, I would absolutely recommend. I would love to go back and read the final copy that has been published!

For those looking for a great way to get in the spooky spirit or step into the horror genre, Here Lies Olive is perfect for you. It follows a teen girl who almost died from an allergy attack and starts to ponder about life and death from her experience. She invokes a spirit for answers and gets a hitchhiking ghost trapped in the woods. As they help each other on their journeys to seek truth, danger follows them. The writing was lyrical and the plotline was intriguing. I wish the characters had some more depth but overall was a great spooky read.

I really enjoyed this book! The writing created and wonderful atmosphere that really brought me into the story. I really loved the characters as well!

I could read queer spooky YA horrors for the rest of my life. Here Lies Olive written by Kate Anderson was massively anticipated read for me and it did not disappoint.

16 year old Olive is surrounded by death and dying living in the dark tourism capital of White Haven. But that doesn’t make her any more comfortable with the idea of dying, especially after a near death experience left her floating in a world full of nothing. In order to find answers about if there really is more than The Nothing after death, she summons a local hitchhiking ghost Jay and teams up with her nemesis and maybe crush Maren, her ex-best friend Davis and the new girl in town Vanessa in order to find Jay’s true resting place in return for her answer.

I loved this book so much. I felt like all the characters were well developed and each served a clear purpose in the story. The imagery and setting was absolutely stunning and unmatched to anything I’ve read in a long time. The only thing I’d hoped for was a little bit more time spent on the romance, but given how much was going on in the plot, it made sense to only be a small part of the story.

Overall, Here Lies Olive was a face paced and enthralling novel that I didn’t ever want to put down. A perfect spooky read for any time of the year and an incredible debut novel.

I received this book for free for an honest unbiased review from Netgalley.

I wish more books were this well written. Characters were witty and the setting fantastic.

She almost died, and hasn’t fully come back. No matter how hard she tries, Olive can’t forget The Nothing she saw during her brief death. Because if that’s all there is after death, what’s the sense in moving on?

But when she witnesses an elderly friend’s passing and hears her call out “Mom”, Olive starts considering there being an afterlife after all. To get answers she goes to a notoriously haunted house to summon a ghost, and winds up angering an evil entity hellbent on claiming human lives. Now it’s up to Olive to put some undead souls to rest and she will—but at the cost of the answer to the afterlife being one she doesn’t want?
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I absolutely loved this book. I’m a sucker for horror thrillers that feature ghosts and this didn’t disappoint! I thought Olive’s predicament was intriguing and terrifying, and the search she went on was a little heartbreaking. Some moments scared the hell out of me, which I especially enjoyed. Creepy and unsettling, but not to the point of being too terrified to go on. Still wouldn’t read this with all of the lights turned off, though.

For last thoughts: I liked the fast pace of the plot, the personification of philosophical themes of nihilism and existentialism, and the climax/ending. I’d love to read another YA horror novel of Anderson’s and highly recommend this to those who love this genre.

Here Lies Olive is a YA novel about a teenager growing up in the dark tourism capital of the US. After a near death experience, Olive has been terrified that there is nothing after death. She decided to summon a ghost in the notoriously spooky manor with a dark past. She ends up summoning Jay, a teenager who died in the early 1900s. He also doesn't know what happens after death since he never really moved on. Olive and her new and newly reconnected friends try to find a way to put Jay's spirit to rest, and try to solve the question about what happens after death.

I liked this book! I work with teenagers and the teenagers in this book are definitely accurate, AKA making questionable decisions because of high emotions. I thought Olive was likable and I liked how the romance progresses with her previous enemy, Maren. I also enjoyed the Indigenous representation with Olive's best friend, Davis. Their reconnection as friends also worked well for me. The setting was also cool, I don't think I have ever read a book set in New Mexico. It did start to drag for me to by the end, but I had enough of a good time at the beginning and middle that it didn't bother me too much.

Overall, if you want a spooky read with some good characters, I recommend this book! 3.7 stars rounded up to 4 from me. Thank you to North Star Editions and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book, my thoughts are my own!

"Here Lies Olive" is a sweet read for young readers about grief, familial expectations, and finding your personal identity.

I fell in love with the gorgeous cover and liked the story. Well plotted, interesting characters and world building.
I wasn't a fan of the style of writing that I found too baroque.
A good story, full of potential
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Rounding down to 3 just for the sake of this rating system, but overall I’d give this a 3.5. Olive is pretty relatable, as I too would probably have a 2 year long mental breakdown if I had been brought back to life and thought that there was nothing for us after death.

The reasons that I didn’t give this a higher rating are as follows:
- Written like a middle school novel, but brought up the topic of sex quite a bit. Didn’t seem to fit with the audience it seemed to be targeting.
- The plot had a clear direction, but the path it took was a little all over the place.
- Love the romance subplot as a concept, but it fell a bit flat and the crush/talking portion of the relationship felt rushed.
- HOW DID NO ONE SUSPECT A THING ABOUT VANESSA? WEARING RIBBONS AROUND YOUR NECK EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY IS SUSPICIOUS LIKE COME ON!!!

Overall, a cute read, but not one I would have found myself reaching for again as a teenager.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for my copy of this book! It may have taken me a while to actually finish it, but I ended up enjoying it more than I anticipated. Olives character is relatable. We go through the dark times and don't want to be a burden on our loved ones, and often times end up hurting them more than we realize. I would read again, and recommend to others who are looking for a little ghost related story.

A creative and unique tale of haunting and magic. It was everything I expected it to be. I highly recommend this book.

Solid 4 star read!

Reminded me of old school cartoons? Just throw in some Native American culture & a slow burn budding romance.

The main character resonated a lot with me. I think about the complex subject of death A LOT. However, I feel like Olive lacked some depth.

Perfect for a spooky hopeless romantic !

Thank you to the publisher, the author, & to NetGalley for a copy of the ARC!

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this cover but let me tell you, it’s true when they say not to judge a book by it.

So I actually chose this book because of it's cover. And well, because it talked about death and I do like some spooky vibes. The book was so much more than I thought it was going to be. I went in with low hopes because I've had books like this before and I didn't really like it but it held me in a grip! And much more scary than I thought. This was one of those books where I had to stop reading to go to sleep because between the characters and the story made it exciting. I loved reading it and especially during the spooky month of the year!

“After my brush with death, everyone asked me if I saw a light at the end of a tunnel. And the fact that I didn't scared me so much that I almost convinced myself nothing mattered. But I guess I didn't think about what that expression really means.

To get to the light, you have to go through the darkness.

So I feel the pain, and then I feel the joy.” 🪦🪴

I feel like everyone is starting to celebrate Christmas, but I’m usually in spooky-mode all the way up until December 1st!

Here Lies Olive is about a girl who has a brush with death and is obsessed with finding a ghost to confirm if what she experienced was all that is waiting for everyone on the other side - nothingness. Because of this, she’s emotionally estranged from her friends and family…until she finds a real ghost trying to move on. They make a deal: she helps him find the afterlife, and he sends a sign about what awaits her after death. Olive is forced to team up with her ex-best friend, the new girl who is suspiciously manipulative, and her sworn enemy who she may or may not be attracted to. What could go wrong?

This book was creepy and exciting! I really enjoyed the historical elements and how Maren was dedicated to righting the wrongs of the past. Even though I didn’t exactly understand Olive’s perspective of shutting herself away from everyone just because there might be nothing after death, her existential crisis was relatable and I’m glad she eventually opened herself up. The only thing that bothered me was how Davis had such a shitty ending compared to everyone else. The whole situation was technically Olive’s fault, but he suffered the worst consequences.

Thank you NetGalley and North Star Editions for this arc!

This book had a surprise ending, and I just love a good twist. I had a sneaking feeling about a character, and I was right, but man did I have a brief moment where I thought I was wrong. This story is delicately queer; meaning it’s slow to rise to the surface. I love this spooky little town the story takes place in. Bless Jay, I adore a ghost boy. I like how this book brings up the question that we all have thought, “what happens after we die”. I thoroughly enjoyed this Halloween-esque mystery.

https://lesbrary.com/here-lies-olive-by-kate-anderson/

Here Lies Olive by Kate Anderson is a young adult fiction novel that follows sixteen-year-old Olive as she navigates unwitting friendships to save a ghost that she accidentally-on-purpose brings into the material plane in order to find out if the Nothing that she saw when she “died” after an allergic reaction is really all there is at the end. She is constantly thinking about the Nothing; it becomes such a preoccupation and such a big source of anxiety for her that she abruptly ends her friendship with her best friend Davis, and she has to figure out how to be by his side again post-Nothing when his new girlfriend pulls both Olive and Olive’s school enemy Maren into his life.

I’m not usually a YA person, but the premise of Here Lies Olive was so good that I decided to give it a chance. I’m glad I did! I liked this story a lot more than I expected. The author really captures the drama of being a teenager in a way that I found myself able to get into. At times when I typically would have started rolling my eyes or DNF-ing any other YA novel, I instead found myself able to accept the over-the-top reactions to the dramatic situations Olive and her friends find themselves in due to the way Kate Anderson set up the story. Of course Olive is dramatic; she’s a teen who died, came back to life, and is now terrified about the dark, lonely fate that she thinks awaits her and everyone she’s ever cared about. Of course she stopped hanging out with her best friend and thinks that losing his friendship will hurt less than losing him to the Nothing; she’s a teenager. She doesn’t know any better. I completely understood where Olive was coming from. It reminded me of how big every emotion felt during my own teenage years, and I didn’t even have ghosts or the Nothing to deal with. Olive is definitely the sort of character I could see a younger me finding a lot of solace in.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the budding relationship between Olive and Maren. I’m a big fan of enemies to lovers, and while their rivalry wasn’t as strong or visceral as I typically like my rivalries to be, it still seemed plenty important to Olive and Maren, and that was good enough for me to keep reading. A slow-burn has to be a very specific brand of slow-burn for me to love it, and I think Olive and Maren almost hit that mark within this genre.

What really kept me reading, though, was the supernatural aspect of the book. I really love the way Kate Anderson made sure to keep the ghostly details going throughout the story. I was worried that, at some point, the ghost stuff would drop off to be replaced by just regular teenage life, but the book’s supernatural element was up and in your face until the very end. Even the town Olive lives in is spooky! Nearly everybody has a job somehow associated with death, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one hundred percent of the population claimed that Halloween was their favorite holiday. Olive always thinks of the Nothing once she comes back from it, and the moment she brings Jay’s ghost into the fold, she stays with him, intent on righting her wrong and getting the confirmation she craves about what truly happens after death. Olive never loses her curiosity with the thing that led me to pick up the book in the first place, and that kept me holding on when I could have dropped off.

Here Lies Olive still contains some of the regular qualms I have with the Young Adult genre: a villain revealed in the third act who the main character could have figured out was the villain in the first act, parents who talk to their teenagers like they either have no time for them or like they’ve all gone to therapy, and a solution to a problem at the end that feels way too perfect. But I still enjoyed it, and I would easily recommend this book to anyone who wants a YA novel with a bit of a dark twist.

Content warnings for death (obviously), ghosts, and some gore that I didn’t expect but actually really liked.

I found this to be very engaging and well written . I definitely see myself rereading this book again because I loved how grief is explored in it .

Thank you for the arc !

This was a spooky book, perfect for those who like horror-lite like me!

Olive died two years ago, if only for 5 minutes. She had an allergic reaction to shellfish. As long as she stays away from them, she should be fine, but she doesn't feel fine. Instead of seeing an afterlife, all she saw was blackness. She calls it the Nothing. She drops her friends, even her best friend Davis, to protect her heart from ever losing anyone again.

She accidentally becomes friends with Mrs. H at the local nursing home, and is there when she passes away. But Mrs. H isn't afraid when she dies - her face lights up and she says, "Mom." Olive has a tiny sliver of hope. Maybe she's wrong and there is an afterlife. She decides to ask a ghost.

After finding a ritual to bring someone back, she goes to the most haunted place in their (very haunted) town, and drags along new girl Vanessa and her ex-bestie, Davis. She brings Jay back, but unwittingly ties him to this world and dooms him to turn into a shade, unless she can find his grave. She needs the help of Davis, Vanessa and her nemesis/frenemy/crush Maren to free Jay from this world and find out what happens after death (and maybe save her town as well).

You'll struggle to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this book, but that's part of the fun! There is some romance, although most of the action is off-page. There definitely is violence, but this is horror-lite for the most part. You won't be kept up with nightmares!

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book!

The premise of "Here Lies Olive" is very intriguing and I couldn't wait for the weather to get colder to let myself fall into a dark read.

Unfortunately I couldn't get on with the writing style from the first page on. Kate Anderson attempts to create atmosphere through details but I couldn't get over the really hard-trying decorations and the thoughts of our protagonist about those. Maybe it is because I live in Germany where the most Halloween decoration is a carved pumpkin for the majority of residents - and here are way more people living in apartements than in houses that can afford to put a pumpkin out there on the streets.

The first positive reaction I had about Olive was when she gave directions to the new kid. Just to destroy it through making fun of a group of tourists.

Overall I am sad to say that this book didn't click with me but I hope that it will find its readers!