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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
What I Liked
The concept of one's grave kind of being like your private bedroom where no one can enter and you can spend as much time as you'd like alone, lost in your thoughts, is an intriguing one.
I'm not usually a huge fan of paranormal, but I enjoyed the presence of the ghost in this text. She livened up everything in the story and made it fun and even tense.
I loved Athena's character. Although she also seemed a little aged-down for an 11th grader (read below), her insecurities and struggle to fit in after living a sheltered childhood make sense and are so relatable.
What I Didn't Like
Laurel is in 8th grade, but she's written like an 8 year old. Perhaps being secluded and homeschooled makes her seem younger than she is, but I was homeschooled and pretty sheltered (in some ways even more than Laurel) and it didn't stomp down my overall maturity. Running around with a shirt and no pants and then awkwardly realizing other people can see her, forgetting to bathe or wear deodorant for days, asking very childlike questions - those things made me wish that Laurel and Charlie were eight and nine instead of twelve and thirteen. They were just too old to act so young.
I wish there was a little more world-building. I understand the idea of making it as if grave-keeping is natural to the world, so there is no need to explain... but it isn't, and I actually looked up The Grave Keepers on GoodReads about a third of the way through just to see if I could get any glimmer of what was going on.
The concept of one's grave kind of being like your private bedroom where no one can enter and you can spend as much time as you'd like alone, lost in your thoughts, is an intriguing one.
I'm not usually a huge fan of paranormal, but I enjoyed the presence of the ghost in this text. She livened up everything in the story and made it fun and even tense.
I loved Athena's character. Although she also seemed a little aged-down for an 11th grader (read below), her insecurities and struggle to fit in after living a sheltered childhood make sense and are so relatable.
What I Didn't Like
Laurel is in 8th grade, but she's written like an 8 year old. Perhaps being secluded and homeschooled makes her seem younger than she is, but I was homeschooled and pretty sheltered (in some ways even more than Laurel) and it didn't stomp down my overall maturity. Running around with a shirt and no pants and then awkwardly realizing other people can see her, forgetting to bathe or wear deodorant for days, asking very childlike questions - those things made me wish that Laurel and Charlie were eight and nine instead of twelve and thirteen. They were just too old to act so young.
I wish there was a little more world-building. I understand the idea of making it as if grave-keeping is natural to the world, so there is no need to explain... but it isn't, and I actually looked up The Grave Keepers on GoodReads about a third of the way through just to see if I could get any glimmer of what was going on.
Gut Instinct Rating: 3
Characters: 3
Believability: 3
Uniqueness: 5
Writing Style: 4
Excitement Factor: 3
Story Line: 3
Title Relevance: 5
Artwork Relevance: 5
Overall: 3.78
Characters: 3
Believability: 3
Uniqueness: 5
Writing Style: 4
Excitement Factor: 3
Story Line: 3
Title Relevance: 5
Artwork Relevance: 5
Overall: 3.78
Meh. Not what I hoped it would be. I couldn’t get past the whole “spending time in your grave” thing. It’s my loss!
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The idea behind this book and the sections on grave keeping were super interesting, but ultimately it felt more like a book about high school than a book about ghosts. I wanted more mystery and more gothic spookiness than Byrne delivered. Great concept, but I lost the motivation to keep reading as I went along.
So far a lot of the 2017 releases I’ve read can only be classified as uniquely strange. This book fits that category very well.
Set in what could be considered the real world, in this novel people put a lot of stock into thier graves and the upkeeping of them. A grave is decorated, opened, and sealed with great ceremony similar to how we celebrate coming of age milestones in real life. This whole concept is unique and takes a litle bit of reading to fully understand. I believe the author based it off of how certain cultures all over the world view death not as something to be feared, but accepted and understood as just a part of living. I guess you could classify this as magical realism, and it has the similar small town magical weirdness that most books have in that particualr genre.
Also like most books in this genre, it focuses on one particular family that is the central point of where all the magic comes from. The Windham family is in charge of the upkeeping of graves and the tenents of Grave Keeping. The main characters, Athena and Laurel are two very different sisters who both respond differently to how they are viewed by the town for what they do. After the death of their older sister they are kept cut off from the rest of the town by their parents. In spite of this, the Windham family is a very loving and supportive one. The parents were great, and considering how in YA parents are usually terrible, that was refreshing. The sisters fight as normal siblings do, but both of them are unique characters. Throughout the novel I was thinking how relateable this whole family was in spite of the strange setting. It made me nostalgic for when I was the age these sisters were.
Another important element to the story was the ghost, a character that get’s their own POV as the story progresses. While at first it was a unique perspective, as the story went on it became heart-breakingly lonely and by the end I was DROWNING IN FEELS. It balances out the more lighthearted acceptance of death by saying “HEY THIS IS WHAT IT’S REALLY GONNA BE LIKE WHEN YOU DIE”. After reading this it feels like both the main characters and the reader of the book will have a new respect and appreciation for life, which is what I think the author intended.
So overall this book was another genre-bender that was not what I expected it to be. It starts out as more light hearted and slightly amusing, but by the end you will DEFINITELY BE FEELING SAD FEELINGS. Also trigger warnings for animal death. And basically deaht in general. If that sort of thing bothers you, this book may not be for you. But I’m definitely glad I picked this up. It fits the magical realism perfectly and is a credit to the genre. I look forward to more from this author.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Set in what could be considered the real world, in this novel people put a lot of stock into thier graves and the upkeeping of them. A grave is decorated, opened, and sealed with great ceremony similar to how we celebrate coming of age milestones in real life. This whole concept is unique and takes a litle bit of reading to fully understand. I believe the author based it off of how certain cultures all over the world view death not as something to be feared, but accepted and understood as just a part of living. I guess you could classify this as magical realism, and it has the similar small town magical weirdness that most books have in that particualr genre.
Also like most books in this genre, it focuses on one particular family that is the central point of where all the magic comes from. The Windham family is in charge of the upkeeping of graves and the tenents of Grave Keeping. The main characters, Athena and Laurel are two very different sisters who both respond differently to how they are viewed by the town for what they do. After the death of their older sister they are kept cut off from the rest of the town by their parents. In spite of this, the Windham family is a very loving and supportive one. The parents were great, and considering how in YA parents are usually terrible, that was refreshing. The sisters fight as normal siblings do, but both of them are unique characters. Throughout the novel I was thinking how relateable this whole family was in spite of the strange setting. It made me nostalgic for when I was the age these sisters were.
Another important element to the story was the ghost, a character that get’s their own POV as the story progresses. While at first it was a unique perspective, as the story went on it became heart-breakingly lonely and by the end I was DROWNING IN FEELS. It balances out the more lighthearted acceptance of death by saying “HEY THIS IS WHAT IT’S REALLY GONNA BE LIKE WHEN YOU DIE”. After reading this it feels like both the main characters and the reader of the book will have a new respect and appreciation for life, which is what I think the author intended.
So overall this book was another genre-bender that was not what I expected it to be. It starts out as more light hearted and slightly amusing, but by the end you will DEFINITELY BE FEELING SAD FEELINGS. Also trigger warnings for animal death. And basically deaht in general. If that sort of thing bothers you, this book may not be for you. But I’m definitely glad I picked this up. It fits the magical realism perfectly and is a credit to the genre. I look forward to more from this author.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
slow-paced