C
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Paranormal, Romance
Theme: Small Town
Archetype: Writer/Author/Librarian
I am very confused by The Dead Romantics, a contemporary romance between a ghostwriter and an actual ghost. This book has a lot of parts to it, and I’m not sure how I feel about almost all of them. I will therefore write this review as a list of all the pieces and how I felt about them. Expect frequent use of words like “ambivalent” and “confused.” None of these are spoilers – they are all parts of the basic plot set up. As you can imagine, I think the book struggles to balance all this stuff.
1. The main character, Florence, is a ghostwriter for a romance novelist.
She can’t finish her latest book because she had a terrible break up a year ago and concluded that romance is dead.
I was initially a bit perturbed by the ghostwriting thing but it was actually rather fun seeing other characters attempt, unsuccessfully, to guess for whom Florence writes. It does mean that on top of all the other things that I am about to relate, Florence has to deal with whether she’s a disappointment to her family (NO) and whether she was ever a good writer (ALLEGEDLY, YES), and
whether she has a right to be angry with her ex-boyfriend who stole all her ideas (ABSO-FUCKING-LUTLY).
There’s some nice stuff here about why Florence enjoys writing romance. There’s also a cool twist that I shall not reveal.
2. Her family lives next to and runs a funeral home in a small town.
I know exactly how I feel about this – very good indeed. I love a good “raised in or near a funeral home” story, whether nonfiction or fiction, and for the most part I loved the stories in this book about the pride the family takes in their work and the many joyful traditions they’ve incorporated into their lives.
3. Florence’s beloved dad dies suddenly and prematurely and Florence has to go home to help organize the funeral (her dad had a lot of requests so it’s an involved process).
Okay, folks, this is where I lost the thread.
Almost all of the book takes place during the short period of time (a couple of weeks, I think) that Florence is at home, helping prepare the funeral. She’s sad, of course, very sad. She cries a lot, and so does her family. But also she heals a bunch of relationships and eats waffles and falls in love with a ghost, so it’s a pretty cozy week.
When my dad died suddenly and prematurely, and I had to prepare his funeral, I was not having bittersweet bonding experiences or falling in love or anything like that. It was an awful time to a degree that makes me shudder to this day.
So is Florence’s experience, which involves a lot of bonding and hugging, falling in love and regaining her motivation to write, along with missing her father, is that just what mourning looks like in a healthy family?
My experience did not involve a healthy family dynamic.
Is Florence having a typical experience for a healthy family, or is it very strange and unrealistic to combine “sudden loss of parent” with “new love, healing, and regained optimism”?
I have no idea, Bitches. I’m hopelessly confused.
4. Shortly after she meets her new editor, Ben, he gets hit by a car and his ghost starts haunting Florence. They fall in love while Florence is helping get the funeral ready.
It’s not like ghost romances can’t be compelling and romantic, but this one threw me for a loop. It happens very fast – Ghost Ben and Florence are around each other for only one or two weeks (it’s difficult to keep track of time in this book). Ben is very vulnerable and scared. Florence is emotionally raw. Those are good conditions in which to make sudden and extreme attachments but I’m not sure it’s a good way to make lasting ones.
With all the other things happening in this story, I didn’t feel that I really got to know Ben nor did I trust the longevity of their relationship, although I might be too biased because falling in love while planning the dad’s funeral was so hard for me personally to relate to. I am fond of Ben, and fond of Florence, but ambivalent about the romance. However, they did develop an easy way with each other that I liked.
5. When she was 13, Florence solved a murder by talking to a ghost and was so relentlessly bullied afterwards that she left town for New York City and hasn’t been back in ten years.
I am confused. Everyone in town is nice to Florence upon her return, even her ex-arch-nemesis Heather (of COURSE it’s a Heather).
Why didn’t she pretend no ghosts were involved when she first solved the crime?
Why did her parents allow this level of bullying for years and years?
Is everyone in town an ex-bully, or just Heather?
If the former, why are they all being nice to her now?
6. Florence’s sister Alice is really mad at her so Florence has to sort all that out and make amends and have a sister talk.
I adore Alice but this talk seemed too little too late. Also for the record I am Team Alice, always, in all things.
By the way, there is an HEA, and it’s quite predictable, although it leaves the reader with a lot of follow up questions, such as:
Why hasn’t Florence been ‘haunted’ by coma patients before?
Is this a thing she can do regularly? Shouldn’t she visit coma patients and see if they are, for instance, comfortable, aware of their surroundings, able to make requests regarding life support, etc?
This is a big deal, right? No one acts like there are any ramifications to this ability!
To sum up – there’s a lot happening in this book and my opinion is that the romance is the least interesting and the least convincing part, although I did like that Ben and and Florence don’t fight or have a big misunderstanding or anything like that – there’s plenty of external conflict what with him being dead and all, and conflict between them would have been too much.
The romance suffers big time for happening smack in the middle of all this other turmoil involving death, family dynamics, trauma, healing from a bad breakup, a major professional setback, and regaining confidence and inspiration. I felt as though I was reading two different books – a family-centered drama about a sudden death, and a ghost romance rom-com.
Now, I am VERY biased by my own life experiences, but I think that even if I remove the death of Florence’s father from the equation, there’s still an awful lot going on in this book, and the romance gets lost within it. Frankly, I’ll be curious about what other people think of this strange, ambitious, cluttered novel. My “too much” might be someone else’s “just right.” If nothing else, I admire it for doing something different, even if it didn’t work very well for me.
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Having been through the sudden loss of a parent, and having “healthy” family dynamics, your points in 3 are completely valid. Sad or numb, but maybe not “bonding and hugging, falling in love and regaining her motivation to write, along with missing her father”. There’s also a lot to do even if it’s not specifically called out as having a lot of requests! I read the blurb on this book recently and it just didn’t appeal to me.
It sounds like the author had a number of good ideas for books and for some reason decided to use them all at the same time. I wonder why she did that?
Okay, so the example I have did not constitute the death of a parent, so that may change the outlook somewhat I think. But when my grandfather died (aged 72, lung cancer but still sudden and too soon) the arranging of the funeral, the wake (I grew up in a catholic, close family) and the general farewell to my grandfathers’ life was really loving, warm and bittersweet. We did hug and laugh and cry a lot. There were stories and music. I sat next to my grandfather (he was at home) reading, sometimes out loud. And the evening before the funeral we all gathered around him and agreed he looked like he passed on. Before that he still looked like him and it felt like he was with us. But that evening we all felt at peace because he had moved on. So I can’t say anything about falling in love but I would describe it as a cozy, loving and bittersweet experience.
*that should say the *premature* death of a parent as my grandfather was of course someone’s (my mum) dad. But he did live a full live (even though we all -including himself- hoped and wished he had more years).
My beloved mom died suddenly and unexpectedly in her 50s, and it was nothing but pain and heartache. Possibly, it’s easier if you’re expecting it and can get used to the idea over time. There was definitely no cozy reconciliation with my antagonistic sister.
Sudden loss of a parent is actually a CW that I watch out for now.
I started Dead Romantics this week and couldn’t even make it to all the plot stuff so thoughtfully articulated in this review. I had to quit at the meet between the H&H- basically, “they share boring gentrifier’s complaints about NYC, banal stilted dialogue: a rare connection”
I have a library hold on this but I was on the fence about the concept and after reading this review I think I’ll go ahead and cancel that hold.
I’ve been through premature loss of my father (and more recently, somewhat more expected and less premature loss of my mother) and first, I want to send a big hug to Carrie S and anyone else who’s had to go through this. It’s awful.
When I lost my dad I definitely was not experiencing healthy new love, increased optimism, etc. Instead I dove into an incredibly unhealthy relationship that I’m still working through 28 years later, dropped out of college, etc.
Re: the concept of the book – I recently watched a movie with a similar plot and can’t remember the name! Woman in coma, man sees her as a ghost…
Thanks for the warning-filled review, I’ll give this one a miss!
I hate everything about the ennobled by suffering concept. I have never seen illness or death bring out the best in people. (I have never seen a healthy family dynamic either.)
It’s almost like Hollywood and Victorian literature have been lying to me. You’d think the whole thing was rooted in a sexist attempt to justify gendered bullshit, with the home/convalescence/death being a woman’s natural sphere.
A happy story takes us from a funeral to a wedding, great. Characters triumph over adversity, again, basically by definition. Good stuff. I am perfectly happy to be lied to if you’re showing me how everything is going to be ok, that’s comforting. But don’t just tell me it already is, that’s gaslighting – and it’s bad storytelling.
I completely missed that this all occurred at her dad’s funeral. But the concept is still intriguing enough for me to give it a whirl.
Was hoping for a Ghost and Mrs. Muir type of story, but this doesn’t sound like it will scratch that itch.
@Stacey it might be too late for you to see this, but the movie is Just Like Heaven with Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon! This sounds weirdly similar.
I’m intrigued by this but yeah, it sounds imperfect to me.
Luckily, I have NOT been in the situation of a loss of a parent, but it was difficult for me to focus on the romance because it was upsetting it was taking over such an important event in a family. Florence has way too much to deal with at home. I also wanted.to get to know Ben more. Great surprises with the author she wrote for and the ending, but that last meeting before the wedding was also disappointing. It wasn’t a big enough moment!
I found this book to be too wordy and self indulgent. I enjoy books with a lot of dialogue between the characters but mostly the main character is wallowing in her pity. I do not like the use of “pronouns” in modern stories as they are different to follow and there was no reason for them in this book. So basically too many tricks not enough story. That’s just my opinion:)