Reviews - Ghost Roast | The StoryGraph

541 reviews for:

Ghost Roast

Shawneé Gibbs, Shawnelle Gibbs

4.18 AVERAGE

readingsofaslinky's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

thrabenvaliant's review against another edition

4.0

funny inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Beautiful artwork, neat story, pleasantly subverted my expectations in a place or two.

thebooknerdscorner's review against another edition

3.0

"Ghost Roast" is a paranormal adventure featuring a Ghostbuster-esque company, a New Orleans plantation, and a mysterious boy that has entirely vanished from history's eye.

Chelsea Grant has spent a ton of effort trying to fit in with the other kids. She's always been known as the "Ghost Girl" because her dad owns a service that is dedicated to hunting paranormal entities and extracting them from people's premises. After a foolish mistake, Chelsea is forced to work with her dad over the summer. At first, she dreads it. Until she meets a mysterious ghost that goes by the name of Oliver. That causes Chelsea to become more invested in the gig and sparks a determination in her to figure out the secrets that the Harrington mansion is hiding.

My favorite part about this one has to be its deep dive into slavery and the legacy it has left to this day. The Harrington's once upon a time were slave owners that abused the power they had over humans to create a successful legacy for themselves. However, it was great to see how Oliver tried to flip the power he had for the better and work towards compensating past slaves both monetarily and with education. I don't want to go into much more details about how slavery is addressed due to the short nature of this book, but I found it's discussion of preserving history helpful.

The Ghostbuster-like company Ghost Roast was another fun element of this book. It's super quirky, but also realistic enough that it works for the story. It was also nice to see how Chelsea goes from absolutely hating and being embarrassed by her father's work to being really invested in it and passionate to learn the history behind the ghosts that her father works with.

Unfortunately, I didn't really like any of the characters, which made it harder to connect with this story. Chelsea is really self-centered and surrounds herself with toxic influences pretty much all the time. I hate the mean girls clique that she hangs out with; it disappointed me greatly that she didn't dump them by the end of the story. I did appreciate Oliver and the other ghosts; their stories are heart touching and they seemed like genuinely good people. However, I still didn't love them, which made it a bit hard to feel truly invested in the story.

I really enjoyed the art style. It is really clean and detailed, which makes it very pleasing to the eye. However, there was this one thing that really bothered me. At random moments, the artist decided not to draw the character's hair and other distinguishing features (presumably to highlight the facial expressions) which I found really odd. It always took me out of the story every time this happened, and I just couldn't get over it. There were some other design and artistic decisions that I found a tad odd or confusing, but none of them were as bad as the vanishing hair thing.

Overall, "Ghost Roast" is a short, fun read that tackles topics such as legacy, the value of the truth, and societal hierarchies. It puts a more cultural approach on the whole Ghostbusters vibe, which is cool. It did have several things that bothered me from an artistic standpoint and I didn't get attached to any of the characters. Not a bad story, it just didn't sink its talons into me either.