First, I would like to thank NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I went into with high hopes and expectations, but found that it really just did not work for me. I might very well be too old to appreciate the YA genre (though I love several YA authors). It might also be because the entire premise of this book was built on a lie and I was forever waiting for everything to come crashing down. I read (and admittedly resorted to skimming) the entire thing feeling terrible for what was going to happen to Meredith. I was also bothered by the fact that after everything Cara herself had been through, she could so willingly agree to deceive another person.

I wanted to love it and I thought it was a great premise but the execution just wasn’t there for me. I felt like it was repetitive, like I’d been reading the same angst forever … and yet was only 37% of the way through. I always feel bad when a book that is gifted to me turns out to be one I don’t particularly care for. That being said, the cover was gorgeous and I would encourage everyone to give it a try- it might work for you.

3.75

Will be withholding my review on netgalley + all other sites as long as St. Martin Press is under boycott. Will update with a full review once the boycott is resolved.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

The Ghost of Us follows the story of eighteen-year-old Ghost Hunter Cara and recently deceased Aiden. The barrier to Aiden moving forward into the afterlife is his younger sister, Meredith, who has become depressed and lonely as a result of her brother's death. With a deal struck between Cara and Aiden, Cara begins her mission to woo Meredith and ultimately make her happy.

I was worried this would be another predictable teen story about death but I was pleasantly surprised by the end of the book. As someone who lost an older sibling when I was younger I felt that the way that The Ghost of Us dealt with grief and loss was poignant and told a side of grief we don't always get to see in YA fiction.

I enjoyed each of the characters despite not always loving the "social outcast" finds support from "Uber Popular Guy" trope. The characters had distinct voices, witty banter, and were clearly well thought out. My only issue was with Cara, who just came off as selfish for a good portion of the book. Sutter's writing style makes up for this and is a reminder that not every good character needs to have a perfect personality.

I quite enjoyed this YA paranormal sapphic romance. I liked/hated the characters just as the author intended. James L. Sutter has a nice clean writing style that is easy to follow, well-edited, and uses interesting descriptors and similes. I was easily able to relate to the variety of emotions being processed by the important players.
The characters have distinct voices and witty banter that had me chuckling. They were believable as high school seniors dealing with complex circumstances. I didn't always agree with Cara's choices, but I knew that going in, as the premise was a relationship built on a lie. The two romantic leads were adorable together. They were funny and sweet and just weird teenagers. Endearing.
There were pop culture references, which I enjoyed but not sure if it will age well. Also, kudos for bi-rep.
This book gently deals with issues such as bullying, sexting, homophobia, death, grief, depression and general graduating senior anxiety.
The group dynamics were interesting, and Cara had a big opportunity to come of age so to speak and learn a lot about herself through this experience.
There was some light casual drug use. One intimate scene that was handled very well for age appropriateness so that I didn't feel like a gross voyeur, since the girls are 18, they are technically adults anyway, but I am old so I'm glad it was tactfully done.
4/5 stars because I don't like lying. I did like this story, and I do recommend it.

This had a great romance element to it and it worked with the young adult aspect of the story. I enjoyed how unique the concept was and that the characters felt like they belonged in this world. James L. Sutter has a great writing style and creating unique characters. I enjoyed the supernatural elements to the book.

Thank you to Netgalley for an arc copy of THE GHOST OF US by James L. Sutter in exchange for an honest review.

The Ghost of Us follows floundering ghost hunter Cara on her misadventures investigating the supernatural. Overall, I enjoyed the read. The characters were authentic and compelling. I really wanted to see Meredith get her HEA, and I loved the sibling dynamics--we don't get enough siblings walking to the ends of the earth to make sure the other one is happy. Some of the lines made me *snort* while I was reading--in a good way. And other times, I definitely raised my eyebrows at some of the things Aiden said.

I'd recommend this to anyone look for a sweet yet complicated sapphic romance.

I'd definitely check out this author's next books.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

The description of this book drew me in and it had a promising concept that was mostly well-executed. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and learning more about Cara, Holly, Meredith, and even Aiden. I really loved reading about Meredith and Cara together and loved their little moments together. I did think that end was a little rushed and would have liked to see it fleshed out a little more. Minor spoilers, but I think that both Meredith and Holly forgave Cara way too easily and I wish that Holly and Cara's conversation post-fight/Cara's apology was shown on page instead of being assumed between chapters. Overall, this was an enjoyable read!

3.75 rounded up.
Cara wants to make a break as a ghost hunter as she didn't make it into UW and feels like she's about to be left behind, staying in Stossel and going to community college. When she does finally come across Aiden, a ghost of a former high schooler from her school, he has conditions for helping her ghost hunting: get his younger sister, Meredith, to go to prom.

This was a fairly enjoyable read. Heavily steeped in high school angst, some of Cara's choices were hard to read about. YA with a dose of ghost and the messiness of grief and loss

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for an eGalley on NetGalley.

The Ghost of Us by James L Sutter is a sapphic Romance with a delicious dose of paranormal wonder. The chemistry between our two leading characters is heartbreakingly real , especially with the weight of a secrete being held by one of them. I am greatly looking forward to the release of this title and can not wait to add it to my shelves.

This book was so close to being my first 5 star of the year. Like, up until the last 20 pages. “The Ghost of Us” had me laughing out loud, cringing, and crying (it’s a book about grief - you’re gonna cry). The characters are realer than most - both likable and dislikable, all just teenagers figuring it out. The writing was great, I love Sutter’s style and even though we all knew the end the whole time, it was an enjoyable read.
Why I took off a star - the ending was so abrupt. I felt like everything happened so much faster than the rest of the novel, there were some loose ends I wanted answers to (maybe the point is that we don’t get all the answers to things we want?). It felt a bit like whiplash. It was a good ending, it was just sudden and rushed. Overall though, I loved this book and will be recommending it to others
Thank you to NetGallery for this ARC.

There was so much to love about THE GHOST OF US. It was a perfect book to sit and read in one sitting.

The Ghost of Us was a creative and well done novel. This was a page-turner for me that I had to tear through in one extended sitting. The novel managed to touch on a lot of different topics and corresponding emotions, without letting the plot get lost in the weeds. Despite using a trope I don't generally enjoy, I liked this novel a lot and would recommend it to anyone who likes romance or paranormal research (or both yay!).

Cara is an aspiring ghost hunter with a difficult past and a strong desire to escape her small town lifestyle. After failing to get into a college away from home, she turns to the plan of making it big on her YouTube channel by finding the first real evidence of ghosts. Surprisingly she succeeds and finds the ghost of a local boy named Aiden who passed away a year prior, although unfortunately she is the only one who can interact with him. Cara and Aiden made a deal where he will help her prove the existence of ghosts if she helps him by cheering up his sister Meredith, who was greatly impacted by his passing. His genius idea is for Cara to date Meredith and take her to prom, but not telling anyone that his ghost is still around. Hopefully nothing goes wrong, such as falling for a girl while building a relationship based on lies.

Likely minor spoilers below:

The Good:
-Cara and Meredith are adorable together. The scenes where they are together are delightful. I love the way that they both help and support each other and grow as a result, both individually and as a pair. It was great to see Cara help Meredith come out of her shell and become happier over the course of the novel.
-The characters themselves were great, although I liked Meredith a lot more than Cara. Cara was an accurate depiction of a teenager (one of many varieties of course) so although I didn't always like her I think that was somewhat the point and the author did a great job. The inner workings of her mind were insightful to see and a great representation of how teenage (or older) thought processes can go wild sometimes. The side characters were also well portrayed.
-The plot was clever; simple enough that its easy to follow and yet contains intricate elements that made it interesting and compelling.

The Decent:
-The characters had good character arcs; both main characters noticeably grew up and changed over the course of the novel in a way that worked with the story. I found the ending to be a little abrupt though and wish that it had gone a little longer to demonstrate some of that character growth on-screen, particularly with Cara. Nearly all of Cara's character growth was crammed right at the very end of the novel, happened so rapidly, and we didn't get to really see it much.
-Holly! Holly was the cinnamon bun best friend character that we all wish we had in our lives, and was a delight the whole way through. She was also well used in the novel and was more complex than JUST a cinnamon bun best friend. She wasn't treated that well by Cara in the back half of the novel though which I disliked; this is fine and worked well for the plot of the novel however I think that conflict blew over far too easily. Holly deserved better than to just brush off their conflict off screen, and it undid the excellent character development where Holly stood up for herself. This was also a missed opportunity; their fight was an excellent catalyst for character growth in Cara and if it hadn't resolved so easily it could have been more impactful.

The Bad:
-To be blunt, I hated the underlying premise of this novel, and by that I mean how the relationship was build upon a lie (and a big one, poorly handled by Cara). This prevented me from enjoying the novel as much as I could have as I was constantly on edge waiting for everything to go down in flames; not the emotion you want during a heartwarming and cute scene. I have read other similar novels where this didn't bother me as much, which I can only attribute to the fact that his novel made a clear point of showing that it would be rough when the lie comes out, and constantly reminding the reader of the lie every time there was a high point. That said, this is a personal dislike that I know I have and other readers will have different opinions of this trope and may disagree with me. All together, this negatively impacted how I enjoyed this book (otherwise would have been 5 stars) but the novel was still good enough that I overall enjoyed it immensely.
-The novel ended very abruptly. Particularly, given the scale of the conflict at the end and how much time was spent building up to it, the resolution came very quickly and easily. Either the conflict could have been smaller (with less angst in the build-up!), or it should have taken more to resolve it. Either way, I found the ending rushed and would have liked to see more of the characters and how things worked out for them at the end of the story.

My final thoughts: I loved the romance, and I loved the ghost parts. I unfortunately didn't love the parts with both romance and ghosts due to the weight of the lies hanging over the characters heads.

I so badly want to tell you about this ARC I received from @netgalley by an author I love, but I'm standing in solidarity and honoring the boycott of #stmartinspress. If and when they resolve the issue, I'll share my review.

The boycott of St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and other related imprints is a direct response to the publisher’s lack of accountability regarding a) statements made by an employee in their marketing department and b) their failure to respond to concerns about possible systemic issues within the department. To learn more and find out how you can support the boycott, please visit @readersforaccountability.

really fun paranorrmal romance. the whole concept was sweet and reminded me a lot of that ghost romance (cemetery boys maybe?). thanks for hte arc.

Thank you to NetGalley and James L. Sutter for giving me early access to this book!

I loved the premise of ghost hunter girl being able to talk to the love interests's dead brother. Very cool idea. With stories like this I'm always worried about one having such a large secret and its always obvious that it'll be the cause of the third act breakup. In this case, I liked how Meredith didn't immediately forgive her. Because it was a big secret and her initial reasoning was selfish and that wasn't glossed over, which is great. Holly's wrapup was a little quick. I feel like it took forever to get to prom night and the ending was rushed slightly but still enjoyable.

I didn't like that the reason Cara was bullied was for the Scarf Girl thing. I feel like there could've been other reasons and that just felt extreme. Like that sucks and can ruin anyone's life at any time. I get it but they're in high school and there are so many other reasons people get bullied.

Some random thoughts while reading...Cara's parents are super cute! Loved them and their support of their daughter. Wish I learned more of Meredith's parents cause that sounded rough. There was a line in the book that said "Heugh!" ? I didn't know what to think of this sound/noise lol but it made me laugh. Who make this noise and how do you make that noise?! Finally, I always love an epilogue to see how they're doing a little while later but there is also some mystery to it I guess.

Thank you to Netgallery for giving me an early release copy of The Ghost of Us by James L Sutter. This book will be released on June Eleventh of 2024.

The Ghost of Us has plenty of charming and lighthearted moments, there were even times where I had found myself laughing/smiling at a character quip/quote. My favorite character from The Ghost of Us has to be Meredith, I felt her character was written well and I could relate to her. I would have loved to see things from her perspective as I thought she was one of the most interesting characters aside from Aiden. I absolutely love the cover of this book it’s beautiful and unique the artist did a really good job on it. The writing style was also decent, It didn’t feel overly immature and read smoothly.

I wasn’t a fan of Cara our main character, around the 250 page mark she was starting to come off as really annoying and selfish. I nearly had dnfed because of it but continued because I wanted to know what was going to happen with Aiden and Meredith. I had mixed feelings about Aiden, he had some funny lines but other times I felt the things he said was unnecessary. There are also some themes of politics and religion in The Ghost of Us and I’m just personally not a fan of reading about either. Overall I thought Meredith deserved better than Cara.

4.75 stars ⭐️ (but rounded up because the majority of this book gave me 5 star feels)

When I saw this book, I KNEW I HAD TO GET MY HANDS ON IT!! A sapphic romance with paranormal themes? Sounds amazing. I have a whole lot to say about this book, this review won't contain any spoilers though. :o)

This book made me feel two different ways, cute high school romance and heart-crushing sadness. (which made the books fun to read and still gave it an intriguing plot to follow) The book has a lot of banter between the characters which was very enjoyable and sucked me into the book. I highlighted a lot of the quotes because they made me giggle 😭

I also wanna bring up how much I like the characters in this book. Even if they do unlikeable things they all have their own personalities and goals, none of them feel flat and I liked learning about the world around them!

That's mostly it without me rambling and spoiling it all, overall I really recommend reading this book when it comes out. I can defiantly see some people on booktok reading it and enjoying.

(final note but the cover art is GORGEOUS, the artist did a really good job 🫶)

The character has a strong voice. The writing is well-done. I stopped after chapter 1 (5%), but three to four stars for the target and five for the right readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

I really love how unique the story is here, I only give it a 3 because I felt disconnected with the characters as I am almost 30 and this story follows kids in high school. All the characters are very likable and the story is somewhat predictable in areas but some readers love that! I have a few tropes I obsess over so I’m not a stranger to loving predictability. I would totally recommend this to others who are younger or people my age and older who don’t mind the younger age as much!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! 4.5/5 stars, rounding up.

Considering it covers topics relating to death and the subsequent grief that follows, as well as the challenges associated with high school coming to a close and not having clear steps forward into the future, the writing style and dialogue remain fast paced, punchy, and overall pretty light. There's a lot of Gen Z/Millennial quips, which definitely do anchor the book within a specific point in time.

The plot itself is fairly predictable, which will appeal to some fans. You'll know pretty early on what the hurdles are going to be, as well as the ending, but that doesn't mean the ride itself won't be enjoyable. I liked the different moments covered between characters as they got to know each other across each chapter.

Speaking of the major characters, they're all a likable bunch. There are moments where some of them seemed a little one-note, so it's all the more fun to see them break out of those roles towards the end, when everything comes to a head.

I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for something fun and distracting from the day-to-day.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an advanced copy to review