A QUEER GHOST MYSTERY
I read this after finishing Cemetery Boys, and I am pretty sure they’re similar enough to say one inspired the other. Again, we have a main character who can see ghosts. Again, we have ghosts disappearing. Again, we have a trans character. Again, we have two boys looking for answers and falling in love on the way there. This time, however, we have many more secondary characters and sub-plots. We’re following Charlie, who has died and come back to life with the ability to see spirits. He doesn’t want anything to do with it, though, even though his best friends are spirits. Sam, on the other hand, is a new seer who embraces his gift, unlike Charlie. They come together to investigate why the spirits of York are slowly disappearing, and the whole explanation is so wild and complex, I wouldn’t even know how to explain it. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of magic in this book.
While Cemetery Boys was mostly about tradition and world-building, Sixteen Souls is mostly about fast-paced action and a LOT of twists and revelations. The book starts really fast, throwing the reader into the story. It continues to go fast, and while we don’t get the same slow feeling of world-building as in the other book, we get a lot of the explanations slowly throughout the whole book, like a drip, and then everything all at once. I did manage to figure out who ‘the bad guy’ was, but after that, I got slammed with at least five more revelations I was not prepared for. The last few chapters were endless action and fascinating magic, not to mention surprise after surprise.
I have to say, while at the start, I thought Cemetery Boys was stronger, in the end, I figured I like this book even better because it had so much action, so many characters, and so many twisted sub-plots. Not to mention the amazing almost science like magic. The only thing I didn’t fully enjoy was the romance sub-plot. It fell a bit flat at the end, but maybe that’s just me.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes fast-paced and action-packed tales of spirits and magic. This is not for those who like deep character building or slow pace and wandering through the story. This is for those of us who love a good plot based story with lots of turns and surprises.
Reviewed by Violeta Nedkova
