8/9/14: A week later and I'm still thinking about this book. Now that Annette and I are doing some reviews, I've decided that I want to review it... So now I'm waiting on it to come back to the library cos I stupidly returned it before I decided on that. 

 

15/9/14: My review, originally posted here www.thetometravellers.wordpress.com

 

I love YA books with a male MC. I don’t exactly know when I came to that conclusion but naturally, I’ve decided I want to read more of them. I’ve got a small list I’m trying to get through and Ordinary Ghosts seemed like a good place to start.

 

While I did find it hard to read at times, (this is only because the book and font were weirdly small) I was intrigued from the start. I really liked Emil. He made me laugh. He’s clearly lonely and definitely struggling, missing both his mother (who passed away only a few months before) and his brother (who mysteriously left town not long after). While never super close to begin with, his dad is now a bit of an absent parent in the way that he’s not dealing well with his own grief and has emotionally withdrawn from Emil. Instead, he is constantly getting on his case about school work and getting high grades. So it’s no surprise when Emil grasps the distraction of the key to Caramoor Academy with both hands and takes advantage of his dad’s 4 day business trip to go exploring at night. There, he meets Jade, daughter of the school art teacher and a relationship starts to blossom.

 

What I liked:

 

- Emil’s voice: it was honest and refreshing. Eireann Corrigan didn’t shy away from typical teenage boy drug use and swearing (can I just say, I love swearing. In books, in movies, in real life – ALL THE TIME) and I really liked that it was true to how teenagers are.

 

- The relationship between Jade and Emil: Though it developed quite quickly for the time frame of the book, it was really well done. They had a bit of a false start, and there was, of course, the usual awkwardness, but they helped each other through some tough moments. And hands up for a well-written, first-time sex scene!

 

- Eireann Corrigan’s ability to make Ethan’s presence so palpable, even though he is barely in the book: Emil’s brother is clearly someone who he looks up to and admires so Ethan is talked about a lot throughout the story. I was impressed that we really got a sense of who Ethan was even though Emil doesn’t actually catch up with him until towards the end of the book.

 

Ordinary Ghosts is one I’ll be book pushing a bit from now on, I think. I’m sad/annoyed it’s not more well known. It’s one of those books that slowly creeps up on you and you don’t realise at the time how much you’re enjoying it, but I really felt it when I had finished. I want to read more of her books.

 

Definitely give this book a go if you, like me, are into male protagonists. You won't regret it.

Emil's life has been turned upside down in the last year. His mother has died of cancer and his brother, who he has always looked up to, has disappeared without a trace. Emil and his father don't communicate about anything important and rarely see each other due to his father's work schedule. The only friend he has is Soma, a rule-bending, line-crossing boy who is in the same grade as Emil.

Nothing exciting happens to Emil. He is average in every way. His brother, Ethan, was the bright, shining star with all the friends, good grades, and a way with the ladies. Emil just lives in Ethan's shadow. He attends Caramoor Academy, a private school with a hefty tuition. Since everything has happened in his family, Emil's grades have started to slip and his father is riding him harder than ever to make the grade; especially since he is paying so much for him to go to school at Caramoor.

Emil does have the key though -- the key to notoriety, the key to exploration, the key to discovery. One day before Ethan left home, Emil was digging around in his bedroom and found an actual key. When he asked Ethan what the key unlocked he received a surprising answer: the key was a master key to the entire Caramoor Academy campus. Every door in every building was available to the person who held the key. Emil asked if he could have it and unbelievably, Ethan said yes. Normally the key was passed from one student to another each year. No one except the key holder was supposed to know who had it. The goal of the year was to pull off a monumental prank.

Emil's chance at greatness comes when his father has to go out of town for a long business trip and he has four days and nights home alone. He decides to use his time exploring Caramoor Academy. He sets up a makeshift bed in the attic of the main building and proceeds to unlock every door he can find. One evening during his exploration, Emil sees the art studio lit up and hears music blaring from the room. He finds a girl inside spinning a clay pot. He is shocked and doesn't give her his real name because he doesn't want to get caught, but he also wants to find out what she is doing there. After some conversation, he realizes she is the daughter of the art teacher at the Academy.

Over the next several days Emil and Jade, the girl in the art studio, form a relationship that leads them to many discoveries about themselves, about the death of Emil's mother and Ethan's role in it, and the importance of friendship. Eireann Corrigan has written a complex novel with true-to-life young adult characters that grow throughout the course of the story. Definitely for older teens, this novel covers topics such as grief, loss, family, and discovery with compassion and humor.

The voice of Emil was so fresh to me. My first love affair with a YA boy-narrated story.

Emil's life has been turned upside down in the last year. His mother has died of cancer and his brother, who he has always looked up to, has disappeared without a trace. Emil and his father don't communicate about anything important and rarely see each other due to his father's work schedule. The only friend he has is Soma, a rule-bending, line-crossing boy who is in the same grade as Emil.Nothing exciting happens to Emil. He is average in every way. His brother, Ethan, was the bright, shining star with all the friends, good grades, and a way with the ladies. Emil just lives in Ethan's shadow. He attends Caramoor Academy, a private school with a hefty tuition. Since everything has happened in his family, Emil's grades have started to slip and his father is riding him harder than ever to make the grade; especially since he is paying so much for him to go to school at Caramoor.Emil does have the key though -- the key to notoriety, the key to exploration, the key to discovery. One day before Ethan left home, Emil was digging around in his bedroom and found an actual key. When he asked Ethan what the key unlocked he received a surprising answer: the key was a master key to the entire Caramoor Academy campus. Every door in every building was available to the person who held the key. Emil asked if he could have it and unbelievably, Ethan said yes. Normally the key was passed from one student to another each year. No one except the key holder was supposed to know who had it. The goal of the year was to pull off a monumental prank.Emil's chance at greatness comes when his father has to go out of town for a long business trip and he has four days and nights home alone. He decides to use his time exploring Caramoor Academy. He sets up a makeshift bed in the attic of the main building and proceeds to unlock every door he can find. One evening during his exploration, Emil sees the art studio lit up and hears music blaring from the room. He finds a girl inside spinning a clay pot. He is shocked and doesn't give her his real name because he doesn't want to get caught, but he also wants to find out what she is doing there. After some conversation, he realizes she is the daughter of the art teacher at the Academy.Over the next several days Emil and Jade, the girl in the art studio, form a relationship that leads them to many discoveries about themselves, about the death of Emil's mother and Ethan's role in it, and the importance of friendship. Eireann Corrigan has written a complex novel with true-to-life young adult characters that grow throughout the course of the story. Definitely for older teens, this novel covers topics such as grief, loss, family, and discovery with compassion and humor.