The Other Ones by Fran Hart Review

Hello Readers,

This book has had me twisted in knots since I read it. Did I like the book yes, do I understand why the book is a little marmite on Goodreads yes, does that mean this book is a bad book nope. There is going to be huge spoilers in this post sorry dear Reader.

This poor book has been done dirty by somebody I just don’t know who. By its cover, The Other Ones looks like it’s going to deliver a cute scooby doo like mystery, the blurb sorry for paraphrasing has key spooky words such as haunted house, hanging out in graveyards and banishing ghosts.  What we got instead was a cute story about friendship, learning that you are worthy of love and how the “Ghosts” we face in real life are scarier than any ghost story.

Was I a little sad it wasn’t a scooby doo book a little I will be honest this book screams Halloween, but I loved the story and the characters. I know Sal is the main character, but I loved Pax. Pax was such an amazing character and I loved to see how his character developed thought out the book. I wish at his age I could have been as unapologetically me as Pax is. I would love nothing more than getting a chance to talk to him about witchy things, vampire books and knitting.

This book has some tough subjects woven throughout its pages such as parental abandonment, grief, homophobia, the vulnerability that comes from letting someone in to mention a few and they handled so well and felt realistic nothing was done for shock value. The romance between Sal and Pax is well paced with time spent on building relationships with the side characters as well so the final gang become a group you really root for.

Huge spoiler readers skip the rest of this paragraph if you wish to stay spoiler free. I think in a way this book has been clever with the word ghost and how the ghosts are shown. The ghosts in this book aren’t the stereotypical ghouls but the ghost that have been left haunting a person’s mind after a traumatic event in this case parental abandonment. The ghosts that replay situations repeatedly inside your head so vividly you can hear it and it keeps you awake at night.

Take a chance on this book at its core this is a heartfelt story about healing from grief, found family and first love.

L x

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