Flowers for Dead Girls, by Abigail Collins
Publication Date: April 9th, 2024
ARC by Net Galley
Keywords: teenagers, young love, ghosts, disability, lgbtq+, mental health, OCD, friendship, no sex, flowers, cute, outcasts, cozy, fast paced.
A beautiful, touching story about not fitting in, finding your people and allowing the people who care about you to get closer to you. It's definitely a teenager/YA story though, and the simplicity of its prose doesn't try to be anything else. It's a pleasant, cozy read, and it explores the main character's inner world. In fact, I found that most of the young characters are pretty well fleshed out, especially when seen through Astra's eyes. Not so much the adults, but it's a YA story so I suppose that's to be expected. Kind of like the adults in Cow and Chicken, if you're old enough to have watched those cartoons. However, you do get a good sense of Astra's mom, as seen from her point of view.
The plot felt a bit predictable at one point, but I actually love what the author did with it, and it ended up being a refreshing read until the end. I wish they had explored Isla's dilemma a bit more though. The author touches on a VERY important aspect of a certain community (I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free) and it would have been interesting to have explored that in more depth. Preferably after the author had talked to several voices within that community. It lacks a certain context and further development for it to be fully considered "raising awareness", especially to young people going through that same dilemma. I think the author missed a very good opportunity to help improve the mental health of young people going through something similar.
All and all, it's definitely a book I enjoyed (even though I usually don't enjoy YA books and hadn't realised this was one when I chose it) and I'd recommend it to anyone into this genre.
P.S.- A note to the editor (or whoever was meant to revise the novel): there are a
lot of repetitions that should have been cut out and/or replaced. Expressions,
sayings, description of actions, sentences... Maybe not everyone will notice it
as much as I did, but my reading experience would have been a lot better if the
writing hadn't been so repetitive. It's normal for writers to favour certain
expressions and it can be difficult for them sometimes to notice they are
overusing certain words/expressions. It's the job of whoever is revising (that
is, a new fresh set of eyes) to point this out. I feel that a lot of times
there could have been suitable alternatives, or that the same thing could have
been said in a different way to avoid repetition. Probably not a big deal for
most people, I don't know, but it bothered me a bit.
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