A review by wilybooklover
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

2.5

This had such an interesting premise, but sadly didn’t live up to my expectations. There was so much potential here for fun ghost interactions and swoony romance, but it seemed to get overshadowed by the family/ex drama, funeral plans, and lots of talk about grief. The setup was so delightfully weird, and I just wish it had delved into the seeing ghosts aspect more. I would’ve loved more detail around the murder that Florence solved as a teen, for example. The plot seemed very chaotic and bounced from one thing to the other without giving the characters time to breathe, and despite being labelled a romcom, I thought it was more cringe than funny. I think the scene where she forgives her former bully is supposed to show growth and maturity or whatever but it honestly just made my soul leave my body in second-hand mortification. Not to mention that she calls coffee zoom zoom juice. Zoom zoom juice. 

I did really like Ben, he was very sweet (to the extent that I didn’t understand Florence’s initial antagonism towards him). Loved the pining when he’s a ghost and they can’t touch no matter how much they want to. Their first kiss scene before he becomes a ghost did bother me; you can’t just go around suddenly kissing people who have expressed zero indication of interest without asking or at least giving them time to pull away first, especially if you work with them. It’s one thing if they had been flirting or something first but it literally came out of nowhere and it’s never mentioned again in the rest of the book.
And it was so odd and unbelievable that Florence just went off to finish writing the book for three months before going to see Ben after he woke up from his coma.
 

Oh, and they’re not gauges — they’re plugs, or tunnels. Gauge is a measurement of the thickness, not a type of jewellery. A minor pet peeve. 

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