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A review by books_ergo_sum
If I Have to Be Haunted by Miranda Sun
adventurous
1.0
This book was about a cartoonishly insensitive teenager who can see ghosts (but we weren't supposed to think she was insensitive?) going on some wacky adventures with her highschool "enemy". Who had just become a ghost.
But themes of death and grief? Nahh. The theme was more: 'I don't care that you just DIED. If my mom finds out about this, she's going to KILL me' 🥴
It was giving Nickelodeon teen show circa early 2000s (particularly the canned laugh track).
And then I just disliked everything else about it:
• The world building was thin AF. Normally, I critique a fantasy setting by calling it "liminal" —but this book literally called its fantasy world the "liminal realm." And I hated it with every fibre of my being.
• Holy villainous monologues, Batman. There was an episodic structure to this plot that had our MCs battling bad guys every few chapters. But not before each and every bad guy pontificated about their evil plans for a few paragraphs.
• I don't think I've ever read a book with this many too-convenient and nonsensical "twists"?
• That romance plot was a jump scare.
And this book couldn't decide if ending a ghost's existence was a good thing (an almost gratuitous number of ghosts were unalived in here) or a bad thing (the whole point was to help our ghost high school "enemy" guy)? The cognitive dissonance of all the characters was getting to me.
Oh well, can't win them all. This cover is really pretty tho.
But themes of death and grief? Nahh. The theme was more: 'I don't care that you just DIED. If my mom finds out about this, she's going to KILL me' 🥴
It was giving Nickelodeon teen show circa early 2000s (particularly the canned laugh track).
And then I just disliked everything else about it:
• The world building was thin AF. Normally, I critique a fantasy setting by calling it "liminal" —but this book literally called its fantasy world the "liminal realm." And I hated it with every fibre of my being.
• Holy villainous monologues, Batman. There was an episodic structure to this plot that had our MCs battling bad guys every few chapters. But not before each and every bad guy pontificated about their evil plans for a few paragraphs.
• I don't think I've ever read a book with this many too-convenient and nonsensical "twists"?
• That romance plot was a jump scare.
And this book couldn't decide if ending a ghost's existence was a good thing (an almost gratuitous number of ghosts were unalived in here) or a bad thing (the whole point was to help our ghost high school "enemy" guy)? The cognitive dissonance of all the characters was getting to me.
Oh well, can't win them all. This cover is really pretty tho.