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Review: Violet Ghosts

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Title: Violet Ghosts

Author: Leah Thomas

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA

Publication date: June 22, 2021

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violet ghostsSummary

For as long as he can remember, Dani’s best friend has been a ghost named Sarah. While their relationship might be teetering more toward the romantic end, Dani is afraid to tell Sarah that he’s transgender. Since she was murdered by a man, Sarah doesn’t trust them. 

When Sarah and Dani come across another ghost who is haunted by her own murder at the hands of a man, they help her find peace. This sparks the idea that maybe they can help other ghosts, too. An unexpected friendship finds Dani more interested in the land of the living. But in order to truly find his place in the world, he’ll have to let go of his ghosts, both literally and figuratively.

Review: Violet Ghosts

Thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this to review! I’ve enjoyed the other Leah Thomas books I’ve read, so I was excited to dig into this one. Just be warned, this book does deal with a lot of heavy topics like: sexual assault, domestic abuse, rape, murder, addiction, suicide, deadnaming, child abuse, and child death. And just death in general. This is definitely one of those books that you’ll want to pay attention to trigger warnings for.

Despite the heavy nature of the book, the characters stand out to me. Not only does Dani have depth, but so do the two ghosts he befriends. One of my favorite things in the book was his evolving relationship with Seiji. Like Dani, Seiji is just misunderstood and accepts Dani as Dani figures out who he is. Their relationship grew into such a supportive one, and I loved seeing it unfold in the book.

While I loved the characters and the relationships, the pacing did feel a bit off to me. The beginning felt especially slow, and it took me a while to really get into the book. Once we meet Patricia and start getting into ghost mystery solving, the book picks up its pace. It doesn’t necessarily get easier to read, but the story feels more engaging.

As far as the representation goes, I will leave that to trans reviewers (you can read one here). Most of the time, it wasn’t explored a lot unless it related specifically to the plot.

All in all, I’m here for the relationships and the ghostly-ness of this book. I would probably only recommend it to certain people, due to the trauma involved, but it can be a helpful metaphor for that.

3.5/5 stars

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