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kerasalwaysreading's review
4.0
Spoiler free review: 3.5 stars
Gemma and Alex are twins. And they come from a family in which talking with the dead is somewhat normal, with an aunt that frequently tries to recreate a time in her past where she was able to spend time on the other side. When Alex dies, Gemma is left all alone with an alcoholic for a mother and heaps of disappointment, she will do whatever it takes to get her brother back, even if that means stealing a special prized item from her aunt to connect with the other side.
Gemma and a ghost named Eve, along with Alex's friends (who are NOT Gemma's friends, I might add) begin a journey to get an undying heart and get her brother back. But, what is the ultimate cost to bring someone back from the other side?
I will admit it took me a little while to really get into this, but once I did, it was such an experience. This was a sad book! But, in a good way, kind of. Good in the way that a love like someone has for their twin is something incredibly special and the grief and devastation they feel in the loss of that twin is all encompassing. You add a little ghostly romance in there and a group of people that start out as people you can barely tolerate and end up as something better, and you have a haunting concoction.
Thank you so much to E.J. Phillips and A Novel Take PR for my gifted digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Gemma and Alex are twins. And they come from a family in which talking with the dead is somewhat normal, with an aunt that frequently tries to recreate a time in her past where she was able to spend time on the other side. When Alex dies, Gemma is left all alone with an alcoholic for a mother and heaps of disappointment, she will do whatever it takes to get her brother back, even if that means stealing a special prized item from her aunt to connect with the other side.
Gemma and a ghost named Eve, along with Alex's friends (who are NOT Gemma's friends, I might add) begin a journey to get an undying heart and get her brother back. But, what is the ultimate cost to bring someone back from the other side?
I will admit it took me a little while to really get into this, but once I did, it was such an experience. This was a sad book! But, in a good way, kind of. Good in the way that a love like someone has for their twin is something incredibly special and the grief and devastation they feel in the loss of that twin is all encompassing. You add a little ghostly romance in there and a group of people that start out as people you can barely tolerate and end up as something better, and you have a haunting concoction.
Thank you so much to E.J. Phillips and A Novel Take PR for my gifted digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.
llrose's review
5.0
You can never go home again
I’ve long been obsessed with the sentiment in this adage, and reading When We Were Ghosts really let me live in it for a few days (and longer, really, because I can’t stop thinking about the book). For me, at the broadest level this is a story about who Gemma is, has been, and is becoming. And the fact that such a rich story of self-hood—of how we so often define ourselves by our relationships, and how we don’t know who we are when they end or change form—exists within a captivating, well-paced adventure story with ghosts, fairies, magic, and bones makes it all the richer in my opinion. I also really appreciate Phillips’s prose. Add in a dash of romance between two banterous but seriously wounded young women, and as far as I’m concerned we’ve got a winner on our hands.
In many ways the driving force of the book is grief—not just in the sense of living through loss, but of how the emotions we experience in grief can really make us face ourselves. The main character, Gemma, *really* doesn’t want to face herself, and so ensues a story of running, moving, and searching through magical lands and making shady deals with otherworldly beings in an attempt to avoid herself. The extreme levels Gemma goes to to run from her grief, to try and get things back the way they were before, to avoid feeling anything she doesn’t want to, pack an emotional punch.
And I love how Eve fits into it all. I was so endeared by the emotions between Gemma and Eve from beginning to end. As someone who leans heavily towards angst, I relished having my heart withered not simply by a marvelous getting together story, but perhaps even more so by how this dynamic existed within both of them simultaneously running away from and towards who they are themselves. Gemma and Eve are each fully realised characters on their own, and how that plays out when they are thrown into adventure together is utterly captivating. A favourite for me was the resonant silence Phillips creates between Gemma and Eve at times, even as they travel together, sharing a common goal and some heavy truths. They go on a hell of a journey: meeting fairies, making dubious, magical deals, transforming, bantering, having sensitive chats, stubbornly refusing to Say The Things, and hesitantly expressing themselves. By the end my poor weak heart was magnificently satisfied to see them work things out with The Other Side and with themselves to create a possibility of togetherness. Especially after what they go through together, I just want the absolute best for them both. They deserve all the naps.
While Gemma and Eve are dealing with their messy selves, the adventure keeps up a wonderful pace, and with it Phllips weaves a magically real world (or worlds…?) running alongside and intersecting with our own, with staggering, surprising consequences. Long story short, I love that Phillips used the magical ‘other side’ along with 'our side’ to explore how we run from our problems, our lives, and ourselves. Throughout I was impressed by how the ‘other side’ never read like a hollow or hokey metaphor; there is so much world building that excited me, that chilled my bones, that made me think I could hear whispers on the wind or see a wispy shadow.
I’ve long been obsessed with the sentiment in this adage, and reading When We Were Ghosts really let me live in it for a few days (and longer, really, because I can’t stop thinking about the book). For me, at the broadest level this is a story about who Gemma is, has been, and is becoming. And the fact that such a rich story of self-hood—of how we so often define ourselves by our relationships, and how we don’t know who we are when they end or change form—exists within a captivating, well-paced adventure story with ghosts, fairies, magic, and bones makes it all the richer in my opinion. I also really appreciate Phillips’s prose. Add in a dash of romance between two banterous but seriously wounded young women, and as far as I’m concerned we’ve got a winner on our hands.
In many ways the driving force of the book is grief—not just in the sense of living through loss, but of how the emotions we experience in grief can really make us face ourselves. The main character, Gemma, *really* doesn’t want to face herself, and so ensues a story of running, moving, and searching through magical lands and making shady deals with otherworldly beings in an attempt to avoid herself. The extreme levels Gemma goes to to run from her grief, to try and get things back the way they were before, to avoid feeling anything she doesn’t want to, pack an emotional punch.
And I love how Eve fits into it all. I was so endeared by the emotions between Gemma and Eve from beginning to end. As someone who leans heavily towards angst, I relished having my heart withered not simply by a marvelous getting together story, but perhaps even more so by how this dynamic existed within both of them simultaneously running away from and towards who they are themselves. Gemma and Eve are each fully realised characters on their own, and how that plays out when they are thrown into adventure together is utterly captivating. A favourite for me was the resonant silence Phillips creates between Gemma and Eve at times, even as they travel together, sharing a common goal and some heavy truths. They go on a hell of a journey: meeting fairies, making dubious, magical deals, transforming, bantering, having sensitive chats, stubbornly refusing to Say The Things, and hesitantly expressing themselves. By the end my poor weak heart was magnificently satisfied to see them work things out with The Other Side and with themselves to create a possibility of togetherness. Especially after what they go through together, I just want the absolute best for them both. They deserve all the naps.
While Gemma and Eve are dealing with their messy selves, the adventure keeps up a wonderful pace, and with it Phllips weaves a magically real world (or worlds…?) running alongside and intersecting with our own, with staggering, surprising consequences. Long story short, I love that Phillips used the magical ‘other side’ along with 'our side’ to explore how we run from our problems, our lives, and ourselves. Throughout I was impressed by how the ‘other side’ never read like a hollow or hokey metaphor; there is so much world building that excited me, that chilled my bones, that made me think I could hear whispers on the wind or see a wispy shadow.
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