The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver
Published by Push on June 1, 2021
ISBN: 133859334X
Pages: 336
Genres: Realistic Fiction
Format: Fiction
Goodreads

Sixteen year old Liam Cooper’s older brother Ethan, star baseball player and golden child, is killed by a hit and run right down the road from his house. “The Ghosts We Keep” by Mason Deaver explores Liam’s grief, alternating chapters before and after the accident. While coping with his brother’s death, Liam also navigates his relationship with his grieving parents, his feelings about his own sexuality, his tumultuous break from his best friends, a suicide attempt, and his budding friendship with his brother’s best friend. While the book grabs the reader in the beginning with the graphic details of Ethan’s death, the pace is slow throughout, and the end wraps up somewhat oddly with glimpses of Liam’s life far into the future. 

Unfortunately, Liam’s friends come across as toxic and unlikeable, his parents’ characters are one dimensional, and we guess his brother’s Ethan and his friend Marcus’s “secret ” right away. In a nutshell, none of the characters, Liam included, are likable. And while LGBTQIA+ representation in YA is great, every single character in this book with the exception of Liam’s parents falls into that category, which seems unrealistic and forced and doesn’t provide any kind of foil for those characters, or allow us to get any in depth look into the struggles they allude to. 

I would not recommend this book to a young adult struggling with the grief of a loved one dying, I think there are better options out there for a YA collection.

Grades 9-12

Lee Remick, York Middle School, York