Reviews with content warning for Vomit - The Ghosts We Keep

CWs: child/sibling death; grief; references to deadly car accident; PTSD, depression, anxiety, and panic attacks; brief mention of vomit; self harm and suicide ideation; some instances of misgendering

Mason Deaver has truly outdone themself in this nuanced exploration about how grief defines and changes us.

While The Ghosts We Keep is certainly a heavy, harrowing, and possibly triggering story for some readers, I think it's also very much a necessary story that puts the reader on a path towards catharsis. So often in fiction—and in life—death can be romanticized as it gets processed, and that's especially true for the dead, who we are often told to remember "kindly." But grief and loss is so much more complicated than that, and this is a book that intimately understands the ups and downs of that process.

I love this story explores different degrees of grief. Not every single person has the same kind of relationship with the deceased, by definition. Some are parents, some are siblings, some are friends, some are lovers, and some are merely acquaintances. This is a story that shows how different people grieve in their own ways, all of which are appropriate and valid according to the unique relationship they had with the person who passed away. No single relationship can truly capture the fullness of one life, and therefore no two people's grief will look exactly the same. And that doesn't mean one way of grieving is "less" than the other, just that they're different.

Liam is realizing that they're at a very different point with their grief as compared to their parents, their family, and their classmates. While his parents might be ready to start sorting through Ethan's belongings, for example, Liam may not be at that point yet, and he has to learn that that's okay.

The story also explores how people outside of the immediate family relate to death and loss. If someone's only experience with loss is through a distant family member or a friend of the family, then that's a very different experience than losing a sibling or a son, and thus makes it almost impossible to "relate" to Liam's experience. Again, that doesn't mean what those other people experienced wasn't "real," but merely that it's a different type of loss that doesn't always neatly project onto the way someone else is grieving. This loss is something that Liam has work through themself at their own pace, even when they can't understand their own feelings or end up lashing out at other people. Grief is not this nice, convenient, neat, one-size-fits-all experience, and this story really gives Liam the space to go through it, for better or worse.

I also love how this story centers a non-binary character without necessarily being about non-binaryness at all, but also intimately understanding how Liam's non-binary identity is tied up in his grief.

When someone close to us dies young, there can be a tendency to venerate the dead and compare yourself to them, wondering if you "deserve" to live when they didn't get that chance. Liam is not only grieving the loss of their brother, but feeling burdened by being their parents' "last shot" at having a "normal," successful kid. That feeling is compounded by his queerness, because he's always thought of Ethan as "the normal one," "The Golden Boy," and his parents' shot at having some semblance of a "family legacy." He's very aware of how his future looks different than anything his parents would've imagined for Ethan, and how he can't give his parents the same things Ethan could have, just because of who he is and what he wants for himself.

This leaves them feeling a lot of shame and anxiety, simply because there is no defined, clear-cut path towards queer futures, and in fact queer futures are sometimes beyond our imagination simply because they've been erased from public consciousness. So Liam finds themself wondering how they can possibly fill the void that Ethan's left behind in their family, and if they're even meant to try in the first place.

I also appreciate how honestly this story tackles toxic friendships and friendship break-ups, which we don't see often enough in YA. Liam's best friends, Vanessa and Joel, are not only seeing less of Liam now that they're dating each other, but they find Liam's grief to be "a downer" and "an inconvenience" simply because Liam isn't ready to open up about it. So not only is Liam left dealing with anger, confusion, and heartbreak all at once, but they're also struggling to navigate how people expect them to perform grief. He's cycling through all these emotions, which can sometimes be destructive, and that only gets compounded by friends who are mishandling his processing of grief. Sometimes the people closest to us aren't the right people to help us through difficult things, and sometimes those relationships exacerbate toxic behavior and situations, even if all parties are trying to come from a "good place"—and it's important to know when to walk away from relationships that aren't serving us.

But as much as this story deals with loss—losing a brother, losing connection to other people, losing friends—it's still ultimately about what Liam gains. Through all of this, Liam gains a new friendship with Ethan's best friend, Marcus. They gain a new understanding of their brother as they go through his things and hear from the people who were closest to him. They gain confidence in their right to process and explore their feelings as they see fit, even if it's not "correct" by someone else's standards. They gain the knowledge to recognize when to let go of—or change—relationships that are hurting them and, more importantly, how to ask for help.

So is this a sad book? Yes. But it's also powerful, insightful, hopeful, and cathartic. It's a story about grief, obviously, but it's also perfect if you're looking for a story with a queer MC that isn't inherently about queerness, or if you want a story without a romantic storyline, or a story that beautifully handles growing through friendship break-ups. There's so much packed into this book, and it's written with such care and nuance, as only Mason Deaver can display.

This is the second perfect book that Mason has written, in my humble opinion, and I think if you're in the right place to handle it, then it is absolutely essential reading.

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