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f18's review
dark
hopeful
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
How do you know if you are a good person? Fiona feels like she is overcome with darkness inside after the death of her mother. She moves into a new (but old) house to find she isn't the only resident.
Cozy, wholesome ghost story. Life after death in more ways than one. I really enjoyed this with its sparse but evocative writing, but I hope the redhead on the cover is intended to be Patricia, not Annika. One crease under your chin does not make you "plump."
Cozy, wholesome ghost story. Life after death in more ways than one. I really enjoyed this with its sparse but evocative writing, but I hope the redhead on the cover is intended to be Patricia, not Annika. One crease under your chin does not make you "plump."
Graphic: Grief
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Murder, and Alcohol
sarah984's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The plot was fine, but everything felt kind of vague and unfinished. I think there were too many ideas for a short story.
Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Dementia, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Sexual content, Medical content, and Murder
wardenred's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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
4.5
Have you ever lived on your own, after living almost forty years with someone else? It’s eerie. It’s like sitting alone in your own head for the first time. The free hours stretch on forever when you don’t have someone else to worry over, and you wonder what you could possibly fill them with. What are your interests, your hobbies? You hardly know yourself.
This is a really moving short story, focused on a woman who tries to start a new life after the death of her mother—or rather, perhaps it should be said, after the dying of her mother, that long, torturous process sponsored by a terminal illness, the journey with only one possible outcome. The time of grief started long before the burial; the situation that gets one reduced to the role of caretaker, and then when it's all over, what do you even do with your life anymore?
The MC here buys a house that ends up being haunted. But her own ghosts are a lot more vicious than that old lady that lived in the house a while ago, or the child who keeps falling off the stairs every night, or the rotting seagull. The ghosts in your head, after all, are never the ones you can hide from under the blanket.
But ghosts can be exorcised, and that's what this story focuses on. It's not about being haunted—it's about letting go, making peace with the past, building something new in its place. It's sad enough that it made me tear up a couple of times during this very short read, but it's also exceptionally hopeful, and the ending is full of relief and that special freedom of a new beginning.
Graphic: Animal death, Grief, and Death of parent