Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5

This book is about Harriet, a student who has the brilliant idea of going into an old building to take some photos. She ends up dying and she gets stuck in this "place" with a lot of other people who also died there. She gets close to a group of ghost close to her age and they show her how her "life" will be from now on.

The author's writing is very gripping - as it was in her other books I've read - and it went by very quickly. There was also a nice twist - which I didn't see coming AT ALL - I also liked the concept of each ghost having a specific power and I enjoyed the atmosphere. However, the character were a bit bland for me and I was expecting MORE about from the story's development.

Overall, it's an entertaining and interesting read - specially for halloween - but there are better books in this genre.

I'm so embarrassed. Luckily, I huffed and puffed and scoffed at this book in private. I had read the premise, but not very thoroughly. At the start of the novel, I made the assumption that Lauren James was making a lot of silly mistakes. I thought she was accidentally depicting Harriet Stoker, the protagonist, in a weird and almost negative way. For example, Harriet would have a way of getting what she wanted by either flirting with people or by using them in other ways. There are so many more examples though.

It took me around 100 pages to realise that our protagonist is actually meant to be an anti-hero. That's so clever!

The story is about a girl, Harriet Stoker, who goes to a derelict building to take photos for her Photography course. She accidentally dies in the building, and straightaway her spirit wakes up. A group of friends are "on the other side" to welcome her into the life of a ghost. They explain that every ghost has their own power, and if Harriet is patient, she will find hers. Harriet isn't patient though. She wants to leave, and she wants to find her power even if it destroys everyone around her.

The premise that I'm giving you isn't a spoiler, but as I said I didn't know these facts going into the novel. I loved every bit of it though! I thought it was an incredibly clever way to make a break with the traditional friend group. I liked the diverse cast of characters and the world that Lauren James created. It makes a lot of sense for ghosts to feed off of energy, and to each have their own powers in order to explain why cultures have a different definitions for ghosts.

I didn't necessarily enjoy the love triangle. That having been said, it's wasn't overshadowing the plot or development of characters in any way.

The novel is written from multiple perspectives. You hear the story from Harriet's and from four or five of the friends' point-of-views. There's also one unknown character who gives the reader a bit more of an insight into the future and the past. I think that's a clever addition to keep the reader guessing a bit more.

I didn't expect to be giving this novel 5 stars. However, here we are with a very well deserved perfect rating! I can't wait to read more of Lauren James' work.

Harriet Stoker is dead. As a consequence of an unfortunate accident- or was it murder- in the decrepit former student housing Mulcture Hall, Harriet is now a ghost. And she’s not alone- the place is full of spirits, including a large cohort of benign former students who died en masse in a mysterious event at the Hall some years ago. The building also contains older- and considerably more sinister- presences. Harriet just wants to get home to her grandmother but some of her fellow ghosts have very different ideas as to what path she should take in her new afterlife. And who is the unseen narrator, foreseeing all the events as things unfold?

In many ways, this was really a perfect lockdown read because one of the central themes of the story is being trapped in a place, unable to leave, which resonates very well with living in quarantine! In the world that author Lauren James’ has created, there are rules for the afterlife, one of which is explained very simply in that if the ghost leaves the place they died, disintegration of their spirit being follows. Without giving too much else away as spoilers, it’s integral to the plot that the ghosts also have certain special powers and require to find sustaining forms of life energy in various ways to continue existing indefinitely. This is all explained with some relatively simple exposition that works best if accepted at face value.

There’s a solid core cast of supporting players with varying degrees of sub-plot including a sweet romance, although personally I found some of the banter between the friend group a little tiresome at times. The plot skips a long at a decent pace- in fact, Harriet is dead within a couple of pages and it adds quite the frisson to the first paragraph to know she has 20 minutes left to live. Mulcture Hall is a fantastic atmospheric setting, lending an extra spooky ambience to the proceedings. And as for what resides in the basement…

As a character Harriet is a very unpleasant piece of work and in some ways it’s hard to care too much about what happens to her. The story offsets this by seeding an interest in the hidden narrator and by putting things from that perspective (rather than solely through Harriet) is largely what saves the book becoming overwhelmingly negative for me. There’s also a very clever plot twist albeit one with some loose ends. Again, without giving too much away about the ending, I can only guess that perhaps a sequel is intended because in a one star-losing move, the final chapters felt quite rushed and it wasn’t totally clear if the ending was intended as cliff hanger or if that was just...it? If the latter, I have Lots. Of Questions. I’ll be intrigued to see what other people think. For me, this was a highly original, fun, engrossing and very entertaining read, with just the right amount of horror factor and certainly one that I’d both recommend and will be thinking about for some time. 4 very solid stars,

Thank you to Walker Books for provided an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lauren James’ book The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker is about a scheming ghost named Harriet who sets out to cause chaos in an abandoned building filled with ghosts.

I was very intrigued by this story because it’s not what Lauren James normally writes. You can definitely see her science background shine through however, especially with the character of Qi, and her experiments.

I found the time scale of this book didn’t quite work for me, as the events happening in the presence only seem to last over a week, yet we keep looking back to Roman times to show how long the ghosts have been around. I feel that it would have been better if the ghosts had no real sense of time, so the character development worked more.

I liked Harriet, but after reading Lauren James’ Fan Treaty, I would say that her and Gottie are pretty much the same characters. They both talk the same, and both scheme and plot to get their own way. I liked having a ‘bad’ protagonist, but some of her thinking was very simple, especially when she’s trying to manipulate people into doing her own thing.

I really loved the narrator twist- Lauren James had mentioned that the narrator would be important in a tumblr post, and I was very surprised when I found out who it was! I thought it was a really interesting twist, and it means re-reading with a whole different viewpoint.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the main cast of characters, but I loved the Tricksters. Maybe it’s because I’m a villain kind of person, but I thought Rima, Felix, and Kasper were incredibly boring and twee. I find most friend groups in YA fiction boring however, so another reader may love them.

I also wasn’t sure about the whole ‘powers’ thing. I feel like it didn’t work in a book about ghosts, which seems strange to say, but I found it really strange? I’d much rather read about physical scheming than Harriet being invisible (that she hardly uses), and Rima randomly turning into bats.

*Spoilers* I was also very surprised by the ending! Lauren James often leaves her books open ended with the potential for sequels (Which I’m not entirely sure about anyway), but to leave on an actual cliff hanger? I definitely understand that there is more story to tell, but I’m not sure what other readers will think.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC.