Reviews with content warning for Self harm - The Ghosts We Keep

The Ghosts We Keep is a gut-wrenching, beautifully written, story about dealing with grief, the loss of a loved one, and the things we learn through it. The characters aren't perfect, and sometimes are hard to like, but I think that adds to how real the story feels, and in a way made me love them even more. The side characters are all so well fleshed out and have their own personalities and flaws wonderfully balanced, their perspectives and lives have meaning, even though the story isn’t from their perspective or about them

minor spoilers

I loved that the story didn’t have a cut and dry, “happy” ending, instead, it left me feeling like this was a chapter in a larger story, which I think speaks to Deaver’s writing and connections to the themes.

The scenes regarding Self-harm and suicidal ideation, are incredibly realistically written, and due to this fact there were a few moments in chapters that I had to skim/skip over, but they also did not feel like the book was becoming about, or glorifying them as so many other stories tend to do.

This book was incredible, and if it was more to my personal tastes, would likely have ended up with a 5/5. I once again cannot wait to see what Mason Deaver has in store for his next book.

Content Warnings

anonymous_traveller's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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xeniba's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This wasn’t what I expected, but I’m glad I read it. Mason Deaver depicted some of the realities of grief and mental illness (and high school) so well.

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unnamedcryptid's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was really, really beautifully written. I love Mason Deaver's style so much, and this was just a really good exploration of grief, family, friendship, and everything.

Some bullet points:
-Like the parallels between the different timelines (I feel like this is pretty common to two-/multi-timeline books, but I still enjoy it every time)
-Casual trans rep my beloved <3
-Liam gave me big arospec vibes at times, like particularly when they were feeling so frustrated w/Joel and Vanessa? Joel and Vanessa were being pretty annoying it seemed like, this was just interesting

-I was cringing so hard when Liam put up the song using Marcus's lyrics without permission; it was a little bit hard to read honestly
-I actually like that Liam never became friends again w/Joel and Vanessa at the end; it's cool to have representation of a friend break-up type of situation because that's so real and often really difficult to deal with

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aspring's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

a compassionate story on grief and learning to live alongside it. this book was heartfelt, full of emotion and utterly captivating. but also, a little disappointing in comparison to what i’d expected. grief, like most things, is completely different for everyone and liam’s journey was evidence of that. however, i didn’t really feel connected to the story or it’s characters at all throughout, even if i enjoyed the writing and the story itself. it was simple and yet still felt so distant. there were so many elements i enjoyed from liams use of he/they pronouns to the emily dickinson references and i did actually enjoy this, i promise! and i think everyone should read this! but it also felt like it could have been so much more but i know that’s probably just my opinion <3

Content Warnings

bash5617's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

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felixreads0321's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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battlefieldpoet's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Honestly one of the best books I've read about grief and coming of age. This one is important for all people, and especially young queer people. Beautifully told, it faces the reality that we aren't perfect people and that working through grief takes longer than just a moment in time.

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