A review by mfraise05
Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks

4.0

I'm a sucker for a good ghost story and I loved this book, I read it in one sitting. The metaphoric death of a town is wrapped in a much more literal one as it is losing its one main employer, a meat packing plant, and is plagued by thousands of ghosts. The ghosts don't live there peacefully, either. They get into car engines and stop them from running, they can live in computer screens and electrical sockets, and they can possess people - for years. There's a lot in this novel and I enjoyed all of it. Hicks really delves into peoples' fear, worries, desires, their anger and terror, and amplifies these feelings with the ghosts they carry. The town is such a horrible place to live in in its decline so it's easy to see why people leave, it's harder to understand why they stay. This is a story of why people stay - spoiler alert, it's a lot of guilt and fear and an irrational belief that somehow things will get better.
I came across this book unexpectedly and I'm glad I did. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a good while.