Eden In Entropy by Sarah Ainslee- 4 stars!

Today's Tea Choice: Twinings Gingerbread Spice

Trigger Warnings: The author’s note includes the following: grief, trauma, loss, car accident, child abuse, substance use, and vague descriptions of death

Genre: YA Paranormal with some Romance

Pages: 330

Summary(goodreads.com):

Ghosts meets the romantic and speculative self-discovery of Emily Henry’s A Million Junes, from the author of That Wasn’t in the Script and Almost Infamous.

Seventeen-year-old Eden Shannon is haunted. Not just by grief. But by actual ghosts.After the accident that killed her parents and nearly ended her life, Eden is sent to live with a grandmother she’s never met in a coastal Maine town she’s never heard of. Her new home? Directly across the street from the cemetery where her parents are buried.Kingfisher is picture-perfect weird: pastel shops, cryptic locals, and a psychic grandmother whose ghost-whispering business might be more scam than supernatural. But when Eden sneaks into the graveyard one night, everything changes—because the dead are still here. And they’re not quiet.A child without a family. A charming gravedigger from the 1900s. A girl who died last spring with a secret she never told. A boy with fury in his eyes and something left to say—they all want Eden’s help.As Eden starts unraveling the truth behind the ghosts, her family, and a boy who might mend her heart in more ways than one, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to help the dead move on… and whether she’s ready to do the same.

My Review:

 Hi Readers!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I still cannot believe how fast everything went, especially because I started reading this around Halloween. The holidays were a busy time, but now I hope to get back to my writing and exploring new novel ideas.

If you visit this blog often, you know that I love anything to do with ghosts and paranormal horror. This was my first time reading something from Sarah Ainslee, and I loved this introduction to her work!

What I loved:

POV:  Ainslee utilizes a first person POV throughout the novel, keeping the perspective emotionally raw, relatable, and at times, darkly funny. Eden just survived a major car accident that killed her parents, and her internal grief is described so well. After losing my grandmother this year, I instantly connected with her journey. At times, Eden is also sarcastic and has a dark sense of humor that broke up some of the emotionally tense scenes.

            “Friends of my parents decided to hold a belated Celebration of Life once I was cleared to go home. It was their nice way of breaking the news that I’d slept through [my parents’] burial…I guess hospital morgues can only house corpses for so long before they get evicted” (Ainslee 14).

 We also learn that Eden was dead for over two minutes, and while this wasn’t explained in direct detail, we learn that it might have connect with her new ability to see ghosts.

Setting/Historical Context:  The coastal Maine town was described very well! As I explored this new location alongside Eden, I was able to picture the local stores in clear detail, from the eclectic coffee shop to the dusty old bookstore where she meets Hayes, the love interest.  One of my favorite descriptions of this town is:

“ Living near the Chicago River and its endless tour boats is nothing like living near the ocean. Every time I look ahead to the horizon, I see a lighthouse or fishing dock with boats setting off in the distance, spraying salt air up into the atmosphere upon departure. Between that and the patches of woodlands, it’s earthy as it is nautical. I’d say it’s like gliding through a scene from a postcard, but that would be overselling it. It’s the most ordinary kind of cozy, not looking to impress anybody” (Ainslee 60).

Characters:  Throughout the novel, we are introduced to a variety of characters that help Eden grow as a person. When she first moves to this new town, she’s closed off and resentful but soon learns to love those who genuinely care about her. Each ghost character has their own backstory and desire to cross over after they notice Eden can see them. The physical and mental characteristics were described in a mix of indirect and direct, flowing naturally with the exposition. All of the characters, both living and dead, stood out from one another as well. However, there were times where I had to go back and read about the ghost’s description again or their death as a refresher.

Dialogue:  The dialogue in this novel was also well-written and included realistic, sometimes uncomfortable, ways people react to other's grief. For example, some of the characters are blunt while others just say sorry for your loss. But the dialogue between Eden and Hayes was refreshing, flirty, and full of little jabs that kept their banter going. They connect over their love of books and shared loss, making this more than a physical attraction. Even the ghosts’ dialogue was excellent and used language appropriate to their time of death.

Themes/Grief Descriptions: Ainslee described the deep ache that often accompanies grief. We see this multiple times throughout the novel when Eden thinks of her parents or learns about the other ghost’s stories and how they passed:

“Chewing on my tongue, I bite back the familiar ache throbbing between my ribs, the one that makes my blood flow cold and my skin burn hot. I want to scream at the family until my voice is raw, telling them to bottle this moment and stay in it as long as they can” (Ainslee 24).

The bodily reactions to seeing a happy family and feeling that longing, like the ache of missing the person, and feeling that ice-cold anxiety, was what I went through when my grandmother passed. Eden also has trouble eating anything, which is something I also struggled with.

Life and death were also central themes to this novel. While Eden feels grief and anger at her parents’ passing, she also learns to love small moments of life, like new love, a friend reaching out to ask if you’re okay, or even the peaceful stillness of graveyards. This duality created depth throughout the plot and exposition. No matter where she looks or what she experiences, Eden sees her parents and all of the missed moments she’ll never get to experience. That type of grief is so realistic, so relatable, and this is what kept me invested in Eden’s story.

What Needed Improvement:

There were a few moments where I would’ve liked to see more transition, especially after Eden leaves her friend and their family who took her in. Did they help her pack? Were they nice or awkward to her during this difficult time? Was the goodbye emotional?

I also found it a bit strange that when Eden’s grandmother finds out her daughter died, there’s barely any reaction. We don’t see any secret crying spells or indication that the grandmother misses her daughter. I would’ve liked to see more detail on this, perhaps to deepen the bond between Eden and her new guardian. There’s one moment where the grandmother drives very erratic, and I wondered why she was being so inconsiderate after Eden just went through a major car accident.

There were times where the plot dragged a bit and then sped up toward the end, so I would’ve also liked to see some parts summarized and others explored in more detail.

Authors Can Learn:

-          How to handle sensitive topics in a realistic and raw way

-          How to explore grief within characters

-          How to think about changing the ghost genre. What do they need to really move on, and how can we break the mold of the typical "boo, I haunt you" stereotype?

Readers Will Love This For: A fantastic coming-of-age ghost story that had just enough romance and funny moments to break up some of the serious moments and make us consider the fragility of life and death.

I give this book 4 stars.

Kyla