An interesting “Groundhog Day” type concept. More love story than murder mystery which actually made it less enjoyable for me as I found the supernatural love story too unbelievable to care about but an enjoyable read once you get into it.

When I picked this up I honestly thought I was reading a love story, but this book is so much more.

Ariel is having a rough time. Her mum died a year ago and her dad is a horrible bully. When he leaves her, Ariel is worried social services will be called in, stopping her from living with her heavily pregnant sister. When she meets Joe in a small hidden room in a mall, Ariel thinks things are looking up, until she meets Joe again the following day and he doesn’t remember her.

As he begins to remember, Ariel and Joe discover they are living in different time periods. Joe is stuck in 1999 and reliving the same day again and again after he mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again. Ariel realises he is stuck in a time loop and does all she can to solve the mystery of his disappearance.

I found this fascinating, especially as once Joe realises he is stuck, he changes things up each day, allowing him to meet other ghosts that are trapped as well as finally getting to say goodbye to his mum.

This is a bit like Groundhog Day but a lot sadder with a shocking twist at the end. You can’t help but feel sorry for Joe and Ariel as they fall in love with each, knowing full well they don’t have a future together.

I found it hard to get into the story at first because I didn’t know Joe was a ghost and it took my brain a while to realise he was repeating the same day, but once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down.

An excellent twist on a teen love story and definitely worth the read.

The premise to this didn't really appeal to me much but I have loved most of Emily Barr's other books for teens for I thought I'd give it a try. The concept really worked and as Joe and Ariel got closer I couldn't fathom how Barr was going to give them a happy ending. I thought the final twist in how Joe died was a bit unconvincing but I enjoyed the ride to get there and have already started recommending it in the library.

I cannot express how much I loved this book - your typical boy meets girl but with a fantastic paranomal twist; not spooky, but so well written and with joyous characters who you will be guaranteed to fall in love with. This has a little bit of everything and I just think it's the perfect YA mystery-love story...

This really took me by surprise. For the first quarter of the novel I was thoroughly underwhelmed and this was very nearly a DNF. Suddenly, however, I found myself wholly invested and couldn’t put the book down.

Definitely one to read and press on with. A magical story opens if you can persevere.

Romance, a ghastly haunting ghost story and a murder mystery all in one book. How could I not speed read through this?

The synopsis follows Joe who is stuck in Groundhog day, the day of his death, reliving this day all over again day after day. Our MC Ariel meets Joe, and is determined to help him get out of this cycle.

This was an exceptional read. Trying to put the puzzle pieces together, connecting the dots between the main characters and trying to figure out who the murderer was, just had my mind spinning and clinging to the pages.

It was frustrating, emotional, thrilling and even the bitter of sweetest romance.

This is my first book by this author, but will be looking for more from this author in the future.

Thank you to Penguin and NetGalley for this ARC.

A British romance story, a ghost story, a murder mystery story all rolled into one, this was such a poignant, melancholy story of a boy trapped in a Groundhog Day of his own death, and the girl in the future trying to solve it so he can move on.

This is a realistic story of teenage life, as British YA often is, with Ariel's story starting the day her Dad leaves, leaving her and her pregnant older sister alone in the house. Ariel and Sasha make a brilliant team, despite being teenagers you can see that they've been used to looking after themselves for a long time.

When we first meet Joe, he's unaware that he's repeating the same day over and over, but when he finally realises it doesn't seem much of a shock to him, more like pieces that he already had were being put together. It was interesting seeing him find ways to break out the monotony of his life, meeting new people and new ghosts.

This has such a powerful ending, that's both happy and bittersweet, as Ariel grows up and the final pieces of the puzzle of Joe's death come together. I did like that although this story was wrapped up, there's a little room for a sequel, if the author decides to write one.

With thanks to netgalley and penguin for allowing me to review this book.

Sadly ghosted will be a did not finish. The book just didn't hold my attention.

However I'm sure it other people will enjoy Ghosted

I’ve always loved Emily Barr and this did not disappoint! Heart wrenching at points and a complete page turner. Lovely and poignant read. Highly recommend.

This book caught me completely by surprise. I have read a book by this author before so I expected to like it, I didn't expect to absolutely love it though. This is a YA contemporary mystery, thriller romance that keeps you wanting to turn the pages. I don't want to talk about the plot, as I feel like it would be easy to give away spoilers. Instead I will tell you that I fell in love with the characters, they felt real and I cared about what was happening to them. I enjoyed trying to connect the dots between the two perspectives, and enjoyed the thrill and mystery. I did predict the ending, though not to the complete extreme that it ended up being. Honestly this was my surprise read of the year and I can't recommend it enough. It is not one I will forget in a hurry and is a fantastic and fast paced read.

I was a bit confused at first as it was very different to what I was expecting from reading descriptions of the book. The first half was a bit slow for me and didn't really grip me, but then I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Joe and sped through the last part. I also really loved how the prologue fitted in at the end!

A truly unique and lovely story which kept me gripped throughout. A twist at the end I didn't see coming at all.

I have never really gelled with Emily Barr’s book but Ghosted was my fourth one, so apparently I keep reading them! I don’t really know why. I think I’m just hoping that one of them will surprise me one day. Sadly Ghosted wasn’t that book.

Ariel and Joe meet in a secret room within their local shopping centre. They get along well and swap numbers but when Ariel soon realises that Joe’s number doesn’t exist. It appears he has ghosted her. When she sees Joe again in that secret room, he appears not to know who she is. She has also started seeing people who aren’t there. People who have a strange blue glow around them.

Ariel and her sister Sasha have been abandoned by their father in the wake of Sasha revealing that she is pregnant. Their father is clearly not a nice man and it appears that the girls are better off without him. However, while the school shows some initial concern as to what Ariel’s home life is like, it doesn’t seem that anyone actually follows up on Ariel’s claims that she and Sasha are fine. No one from the school comes to visit, social services are nowhere to be seen. I understand that Sasha is an adult but she is only 20 (and pregnant). Authorities are hardly likely to be sure that she is capable of looking after Ariel too without some investigation. So, that all felt a little hard to believe.

Joe is incredibly anxious about going on a French exchange. While I thought the way that his anxiety was written was very relatable, I couldn’t really figure out why he was so nervous about it. He is 15 years old and doesn’t specifically mention any fear of travelling. Perhaps he could simply sense what was about to happen to him but the book doesn’t tell us that either.

I think my favourite part of the book was the appearance of the ghosts that Ariel sees. I figured out what they were before she did and I couldn’t escape an overwhelming sense of the sads, whenever they appeared. I think it was the cool, calm yet unbearably melancholy blue glow that immediately threw an ice bucket all over my feels. It was very powerful imagery and definitely gave the whole book a sad, ethereal atmosphere.

I think my eyes rolled so hard that they disappeared into the back of my head, when Joe and Ariel were both miraculously attracted to each other immediately. I know that they’re teenagers but I am incredibly bored of insta-love and insta-lust. It meant that I couldn’t take the romance seriously for the entire narrative. So, I didn’t feel the heartbreak that I should have felt for their impossible love, which was really sad. I really wish they’d hated each other on their first meeting, continued to meet unwillingly and discovered that actually they liked each other around halfway through the book. I’d have been much more invested!

Ghosted is a very interesting concept, which I have to give props to Barr for. However, both of the main characters were very cookie cutter-esque and the romance was non-existent. There also seemed to be pages where not a lot really happened, so I think it could have done with some more thorough editing to help the pace. I have a feeling this will be the last Emily Barr book that I try but I may have said that before!

I really struggled to get into this and couldn't get my head round what was going on. Didn't finish it.

This was a really interesting story and I loved watching it gradually unfold. Something different, addictive, and somehow realistic. An excellent take on a ghost story.

I loved Emily Barr's previous books, especially One Memory of Flora Banks, so I was really excited to read this and it didn't disappoint. Ghosted has really interesting characters, I loved Ariel and Joe and the whole concept intrigued me and made me want to read more. It's not a unique story line, but it was well written.

Set in 2019 and 1999--it sounds straightforward. But Ariel is from 2019 and Joe from 1999. How can they possibly meet?

I still preferred One Memory, but this was good, too!

So the synopsis of this book does not give away exactly what is going on here (although you may be able to guess) so I will be careful about spoilers. This is a dual perspective novel following Joe and Ariel when they meet each other and how this influences them both.

This type of book has to be very careful as it is so easy to become repetitive without providing anything new. I feel on the whole Emily Barr does a good job at this. I particularly like hearing more about Ariel's home life throughout the story. I can imagine this will be a hit with teenage readers.

Ghosted is a story that had me, at times, wondering what I was reading. Part romance, part thriller, Emily Barr has created a most unusual story.
We follow two teens, Joe and Ariel, who meet one day and get on very well. At this stage I wondered if it was going to be a relatively straightforward romance, but it quickly becomes something very different. Ariel tells her friend Izzy about this amazing boy she’s met, only to learn that the number he gave her doesn’t work. None of the things he told her seem to be true, and she thinks she’s been ghosted.
Ariel is coping with a lot of potential trauma. The one year anniversary of her mother’s death is approaching, her sister is pregnant and they have been abandoned by their father. Her not being fully in control of herself would be understandable, but the reality of her situation is far stranger.
What Ariel soon realises is that while she is alive in 2019, Joe lives in 1999. Joe went missing on the eve of his school trip to France and nobody knows what happened to him. While Ariel lives her life, Joe is destined to relive the same day over and over again.
Naturally, Ariel takes it upon herself to investigate. She falls in love with the idea of Joe and wants to restore peace to his family. There’s a lot of coincidences to this story, but they don’t take away too much from what is played out in front of us.
I received a copy of this from NetGalley and can only thank the publishers and the author for creating something so unusual.

Ghosted is about a young girl who falls for a boy who is not actually alive - and only she can see. The whole book had a tinge of melancholy about it that was interesting to read, but overall it wasn't a vibe that I loved. Simply a personal preference, but this book wasn't for me.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

*This is not a personal attack but in fact an honest review*

I didn't like this book. It really wasn't for me. In my opinion, the writing was stilted and felt more like fan fiction than actual writing. I did not finish this book.