I thought this was great! Very entertaining read and great concept. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

If there was one thing my education had taught me, it was that cash set the imagination free."

Luca has quit his PhD in the US, broken up with his girlfriend, and returned to Manchester to crash on his friend's couch. He's not figuring it out and trying to stretch his last 2,000 pounds until he dies. After his friend gives him a wake-up call, he accepts a job as a ghostwriter for a man who's had shit luck in life.

This is peak literary fiction. Amazing writing, not a lot going on, but very wordy chewings about that nothingness. The ending was very heavy, I wasn't expecting to feel that bad about it all. So rounding my 3.5 starts up for the rating.

Luca was difficult to empathize with. He's the type of dude who goes with the flow and repeats his parents' mistakes. Some bits, I enjoyed. But overall, I couldn't get the sense of it all. The best bits for me were the writing bits and spending time with Andy, everything else about Luca's romantic life or dad didn't hold my interest.

I do have to say, as someone who has finished a PhD, that defense bit where you go from student to candidate is one of the toughest things to go through. It's a very humbling experience and I can't imagine having a tough panel for it (mine was great and I had the shakes while they deliberated). So, I just want to stress that leaving and quitting while the panel is deliberating is such a choice lol I also had the intrusive thought.

Anyways, amazing writing. (I think it's a debut too). I'm just the type of reader who likes substance and action more than I do style.

An interesting novel, but one that's hard to get into and doesn't quite feel like it's finished. The prose style of the Poor Ghost was, perhaps, not for me.

Luca, a native of Manchester, finds himself return to the city after dropping out of his doctoral degree.
The PhD represents an intellectual, complex, and at times, ideal world. and Luca's life outside of the PhD is more shattered.
In need of money, Luca turns to ghostwriting.
MS, philosophy, language, classes, trauma, belonging, being true to one's self, being between two worlds and minds, mental and real/physical dislocation, misunderstandings are some of the many layers and themes of this interesting book.
The writing is 3.5 stars.
The themes and topics 5.
The overall execution is 4, in my experience. With a bit more editing, I would have enjoyed it more.
Though, I recommend it for its interesting and authentic themes and characters/situations.

I was really eager to read this as I have MS and wanted to see how this was handled. I liked how reflective and lyrical the writing is but only managed to get 40% of the way in before abandoning the book. It lacked pace and forward motion for me and I just couldn't care enough about the protagonist enough to carry on reading.

Poor Ghost! by Gabriel Flynn successfully captures that feeling of being someone who struggles with their natural instinct to self-sabotage and how to move forward with life when you've no idea what you're doing.

This book delivers what it promises : a story about a man struggling after his failing at his PhD, coming back to his hometown and being offered a job to write the story of another man. Frustrated ambition, intelletucalism and memories are the centre of the book, down to its structure. We follow our narrator in the present timeline and wander into the past before coming to the present.
Once again, books set in a contemporary setting and telling a story of day to day life isn't for me. I couldn't connect with Luca and found him quite unlikable, despite my empathy. Normally, I don't really mind unlikable characters as long as I am invested in their story. Saddly, it wasn't the case here, leading me to put the book aside half way through.
It's not that the book is bad. It is well enough written, not the most vivid prose I've read, but doing it's job. But the overall sense of misery and the movement between present and past had a tendency to annoy me, and I had no drive to pursue my reading, so here we are.
People looing for a quite realistic novel, with themes of lose, failure, love and stories might find this book to their liking.