From goodreads: From bestselling author Natalie Standiford, an amazing, touching story of two friends navigating the dark waters of their senior year.
New to town, Beatrice is expecting her new best friend to be one of the girls she meets on the first day. But instead, the alphabet conspires to seat her next to Jonah, aka Ghost Boy, a quiet loner who hasn’t made a new friend since third grade. Something about him, though, gets to Bea, and soon they form an unexpected friendship. It’s not romance, exactly – but it’s definitely love. Still, Bea can’t quite dispel Jonah’s gloom and doom – and as she finds out his family history, she understands why. Can Bea help Jonah? Or is he destined to vanish?
Review…
Let me start by saying, this is not a YA romance. It’s definitely YA but it’s a complex story about friendship and life. I won’t lie, it’s sad and it’s not the kind of sad that will make you ugly cry but it will make your heart hurt. And if it does make you cry, that wouldn’t surprise me because that’s the kind of book this is.
“There is a separation between parents and children that shouldn’t be breached when the children are young. The parents’ adult follies are private. They’re disturbing and hard to understand. But eventually the kids wise up, the follies start leaking out, and the parents are revealed in all their flawed humanity.”
This is the tale of Ghost Boy and Robot Girl, god…I really loved those two characters. They were so incredibly compelling that they moved me repeatedly throughout this story and I could relate to all their quirkiness. It’s so much more than that because it’s about loneliness, an all-consuming feeling of melancholy and pure grief. I’m not sure I know how to put into words how I feel about this story without sounding like a two-year old.
“I’ll never forget Jonah’s face. A light poured out of him and became the spirit of the room, like a genie released from a bottle after centuries of darkness.”
One of the many things I adored about this story was the late night radio program. I would have loved to listen to something like that growing up, I mean, what a great escape! But this is how Jonah (Ghost Boy) connects with people, through this fantasy of a nightly radio program. I felt Jonah’s pain bleed through the pages of this book and in turn, I felt his fragility in my heart.
“I had no cause to be happy. I felt sad with a good reason, and it wouldn’t be right to mess with that feeling. I thought I ought to just stay sad for a while.”
Bea (Robot Girl) has a really strong voice, she isn’t made out of metal and in fact, she feels deeply for Jonah and everything that he has suffered through. However, her home life isn’t the picture of Norman Rockwell either but somehow (and I hate comparing crosses) it seems that her burden is not quite the same.
“I didn’t want to die. I just found death soothing to think about.”
The writing is stellar, it’s a unique story about friendship and loss and it’s guaranteed to make you feel every emotion possible to remind you that you’re alive. For me, it served as a reminder to live, forgive and to move on, even when at times you might not even want to.
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