A review by livelyghost
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

emotional funny sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

The summary of this book hit on so many favorites for me: ghost romance! A family that runs a funeral home! Big city girl returns to small hometown to experience ~living~! Unfortunately too much of a good thing was maybe a little too on the nose for me. The parts of the book that I loved didn’t have anything to do with romance. Florence’s family felt so cozy, and I really enjoyed her exploring her grief along with her sister. Her relationship with her dad was so wonderful, and I loved the example of a long-term romance between her parents. Who couldn’t want a love like that? 

Standing there in the middle of the dandelion field, looking up into Ben’s soft ocher eyes, I began to realize that love wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t there forever either. It was something in between, a moment in time where two people existed at the exact same moment in the exact same place in the universe. I still believed in that - I saw it in my parents, in my siblings, in Rose’s unabashed one-night stands looking for some peace. It was why I kept searching for it, heartbreak after heartbreak. It wasn’t because I needed to find out that love existed - of course it did - but it was the hope that I’d find it. That I was an exception to a rule of made up in my head. 

Florence’s walk through grief felt very relatable and definitely made me cry, something I wouldn’t have ever guessed from a romance. In fact, maybe I would call this book fiction instead of romance because of how significantly it treads away from common tropes. I still wanted more from the planning of her dad’s funeral, but by and large the romance aspect of this feels more like falling back in love with the world than with a person and has almost no spice. I feel like the romantic relationship was arguably the weakest point of the book. Ben is sweet but I can’t imagine (possible spoiler but happens in the first few chapters of the book)
making out with someone you directly report to almost immediately after meeting them.
There’s so much semi-ironic stuff happening around their relationship - she’s a ghost writer who can see ghosts and he’s, wow, also a ghost - that it just felt over the top. The book acknowledges that the corniness inherit to romances novels is what makes them feel so wondrous, but the emotional whiplash from making terrible puns to your ghost crush to morning your dead dad didn’t make it feel balanced. 

I enjoyed the thoughts in this book surrounding life and death, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend it if you’re looking for a romance. 
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